US lawmakers are determined not to upset their families and take a break from the rarefied atmosphere of Washington. Barring an accident, everyone will be able to travel home for the Thanksgiving holidays, the Thanksgiving holiday that is celebrated on Thursday of next week, eating turkey and pumpkin pie at home, surrounded by the warmth of their loved ones.
New House Speaker Mike Johnson saved the first match point and scored a victory, if only another extension until early 2024, by passing stopgap legislation to prevent a government financial shutdown. The deadline expires at zero hours and one second next Saturday. The ‘speaker’ proposal, which was immediately sent to the Senate for endorsement, as everything indicates, came to light thanks to the massive support of progressives in the face of the defection of a good number of Republicans, specifically the most conservative and like-minded. to Johnson.
A similar situation, of internal dissent and rescue of the rival, cost his predecessor, Kevin McCarthy, his position. His successor, as a rookie, is given more time and another opportunity.
When choosing a special process, the proposal required a two-thirds majority. There were 336 votes in favor that allowed us to overcome that ceiling, of which 127 were from the Republican bench and 209 from the Democrat. A total of 93 conservatives were opposed, as well as two liberals.
Senator Chuck Schumer, leader of the Democratic majority in the Senate, expressed his intention to vote in favor, an opinion shared by the leader of the Republican minority Mitch McConell. He will be on the table as soon as possible so that it reaches President Joe Biden’s signature within the deadline. The path emerges clear, but once again it is demonstrated that the Republicans lack the political will to finance the government and this forces their leaders to operate with a small majority and relying on Democratic votes.
Despite the criticism that this plan received from the White House, which called it a waste of time, Schumer assured that he has been talking to the administration. “We both agreed, the government and I, that this can prevent financial closure and that is a good thing,” he said shortly after the vote in the House of Representatives.
This legislation leaves things more or less as they are. It is what is called “a clean measure” that extends financing to the current level, without cuts in social issues as the right-wing extremists were pursuing, and that leaves out the issues of greatest partisan confrontation such as the allocations for the control of the border with Mexico and aid to Ukraine and Israel.
The originality of Johnson’s proposal is that it is deployed on two levels with dates that branch from different expiration dates. Thus, the departments of Agriculture, Transportation, Housing and Urban Development and the Veterans Office will have funding until January 19, while the deadline for Defense and other branches of the executive will expire on February 2.
This calendar offers legislators more time to try to craft an annual proposal as many conservatives demand, as long as what they demand is included.
Barely a month and a half ago, McCarthy, who was then the president of the House, lost the commanding gavel in place precisely because of a short-term resolution, until this November 17, to which Johnson himself opposed (although with a number of Republicans even smaller than this Thursday), but which the progressives voted for. This led to a revolt by a minority of eight ultra-conservatives who managed to end McCarthy’s career as a speaker, his great dream.
If on this occasion the Democratic leaders advised voting in favor, the members of the so-called ‘Freedom Caucus’, close to Johnson, showed their opposition because “there is no reduction in spending, there is no money to secure the border and no measure that would mean a victory for the American people.” However, and despite this greater opposition to his plan, the rookie president of the Lower House received an oxygen bomb. His most radical colleagues agreed to give him a margin of time, until the new expiration dates, to consider whether to put his thumbs up or down.
Bob Good, one of the eight who overthrew McCarthy, blamed the former president, because Johnson has only had three weeks, while his predecessor “had months and failed.” Tim Burchet, another of the so-called “hateful eight”, a nickname with “Tarantinian” resonance, also sponsored this thesis.
Burchet denounced shortly before the vote that, without meaning to, McCarthy buried his elbow in his back and almost left him breathless. It was one of the violent outbreaks in Congress recorded this Thursday.
In the other chamber, and after exchanging insults, Republican Senator Markwayne Mullin ordered him to hit, right there, a union leader who was in full hearing of the education commission! The veteran Bernie Sanders, who presided over the session, prevented the combat and reminded them that “you are in the United States Senate,” although this Thursday he gave the image of a high school courtyard.
“I’ve been drinking Niagara Falls water for the last three weeks. “This funding proposal will allow us all to go home for Thanksgiving and calm down,” Johnson, a Louisiana legislator, told reporters once the vote concluded. “Some have been here for ten weeks. This place is a pressure cooker. I think we will travel home and return with a clean slate,” he stressed.
