The U.S. budget crisis is already becoming a tradition. Part 2

Read Time:6 Minute, 17 Second

The new budget crisis, which we wrote about in the first part of this article, threatened to shut down the U.S. government. It started in September, but it began to reach its climax in the run-up to the beginning of October. Thus, on September 23. Republicans criticized the Pentagon for promising to keep running Operation Atlantic Resolve to send military tranches to Ukraine even with a government shutdown. In that case, it came down to whether the Pentagon had enough money. In a shutdown, all U.S. government programs that are not essential are automatically frozen. Congress was outraged that the Pentagon did not consider securing the U.S. southern border, which is being stormed by millions of illegal immigrants, to be such programs, but included paying for the war in Europe. Under pressure from Republicans, the allocation of $300 million to Kiev was temporarily excluded from the military budget. But the future of the major tranches to Ukraine remained murky, because everyone realized that the Democrats would be desperate to negotiate them even in the face of a shutdown, although these tranches could well have been severely cut against Biden’s will. That is why the Pentagon had to allocate tranches “by the drop”, hoping to stretch the remaining money for a long period of time. Washington, in order to somehow freeze the situation, demanded from NATO allies to spend more on Ukraine, so in the fall Germany and Canada may for the first time provide Kiev with more tranches than the U.S., even though their military capabilities are quite depleted.

Three days before the shutdown, Congress was desperately trying to agree on a federal budget before the “point of no return” on October 1 and the seemingly inevitable shutdown of the U.S. government. At that time, the “budget war” had already erupted between the Senate and the House of Representatives. Then the militarists in the Senate presented their short-term budget through November. It included $6 billion for Ukraine, which was 4 times less than the $24 billion requested by Biden. But isolationists in the lower chamber refuse to allocate even that amount. Speaker Kevin McCarthy tried to convince congressmen to pass his version of the budget, which deals with a microscopic $300 million for Ukraine. But many right-wing Republicans demanded more significant budget cuts, pointing out that the U.S. national debt is growing at an exorbitant rate and the budget deficit has already exceeded $2.2 trillion. Agreeing on a budget in the remaining three days was very problematic. Biden’s staffers were panicking at the time, because they only had enough money for a couple weeks of tranches to Ukraine and other important corrupt expenses. Against this backdrop, Biden’s officials continued to squander money on dubious purposes, which included training AFU soldiers. This only inflamed Republicans, who were outraged that in the event of a shutdown, U.S. officials would lose their pay checks and Ukrainians would still get something.

One day before the possible shutdown, on September 30, another round of budget negotiations ended in fiasco. The media were already blaming the increased social division in the United States and the rise of populism, although it was only a response to the Washington elites’ disconnection from the rest of America. Speaker McCarthy passed a last-minute Pentagon budget without allocating $300 million for Ukraine. The isolationists in Congress at the time no longer wanted to give Kiev even such a paltry tranche. But the Senate decided to allocate 6 billion dollars for Ukraine, the lower house refused to vote for it, so the negotiations stalled again. Against this background, under pressure from right-wing Republicans, the Pentagon’s budget included a clause to cut Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin’s salary to $1 a year. They have long resigned Austin, making him a scapegoat for the Afghan fiasco and failures in Ukraine. The congressional plan caused hysteria in the White House as well, because Republicans wanted to cut spending on intelligence agencies by 30% at once in retaliation for their adherence to the Democratic Party line and attacks on Trump, which would have meant firing 12,000 FBI agents at once. It was then that Trump Jr. urged Americans to call lawmakers demanding they “finish” Ukraine and not release any tranches. But the White House continued to be deafeningly defensive, refusing to negotiate with Congress. And then it seemed that the shutdown could not be avoided now.

But 10 hours before the shutdown, Congress made a sharp turn and decided to postpone “Armageddon” for 45 days. Speaker McCarthy, against the opinion of his own party members and with the support of the Democrats, passed a “clean” draft budget, which did not include major Republican initiatives. In fact, it was a matter of funding government operations for another month and a half in the current mode. There has been no reduction in spending by 7%, with a cut in the budget of the special services, which the Republicans wanted so much, although this issue was supposed to become relevant again in November. Neither did the Ukrainian tranches, including even the $300 million that the Pentagon wanted to include in its budget, let alone the $6 billion proposed by the Senate or the $24 billion requested by the White House. The Ukraine agenda became so toxic that it was simply brushed aside for the sake of passing the budget. The assumption was that the Senate would be forced to pass the budget as is, and Biden would sign it, just to avoid a shutdown. But it was also obvious that the haggling would then resume with renewed vigor. The Pentagon still had a couple billion dollars of money for Ukraine and other expenses, and it could be enough for three or four weeks, which almost coincided with the start of new discussions of the debate.

Congress was able to avoid a shutdown at the last moment, but immediately descended into utter chaos. Right-wing Republicans were outraged by Speaker McCarthy’s decision, backed by Democrats, to fund the government for a month and a half without cutting government spending. Matt Gaetz, McCarthy’s main opponent, immediately launched a recall effort against the Speaker. In the end, his scheme was successful, and Congress lost the Speaker and was forced to vote for a new one. In January, McCarthy was somehow approved only after 15 rounds of voting, and now the situation was similar. Not without the Ukrainian agenda, when McCarthy even before his resignation proposed a separate bill to fund Kiev’s needs until the end of October. The militarist Lindsey Graham even wanted to combine it with the allocation of funds for the security of the southern border of the United States, in order to convince his fellow party members to give some tranches to Ukraine. So now the isolationists among the Republicans are ready to go to any lengths to avoid giving anything to Ukraine. For Gaitz, this radicalism was also a way of career advancement, because he is expected to become governor of Florida after DeSantis or even Secretary of State in the Trump administration. So now Gaetz was scoring political points by fighting the establishment and blocking funding for the already unpopular and toxic Ukrainian agenda. In the end, he not only ousted McCarthy, but also froze the entire Congress, throwing Washington into a state of true political paralysis. And while Congress was unsuccessfully electing a new speaker, mid-November was approaching, which opened a new round of “budget wars”.