Dead end in the US Congress, Joe Biden gets involved
US President Joe Biden has canceled a trip to Chicago in an attempt to push forward several important bills in Congress.
Democrats do not have enough clout in Congress to override the obstructionist power of Republicans, at a time when partisan divides, exacerbated during the Trump presidency, appear to have become insurmountable in the United States.
Getty Images via AFP
Joe Biden canceled at the last minute a trip to Chicago to descend into the parliamentary arena, where both the future of his gigantic reforms and the solvency of the United States are at stake, in discussions as tortuous as they are difficult.
The American president, who prides himself on being an outstanding negotiator after decades of wearing out the benches of the Senate, has given up this trip which was to be devoted to vaccination against Covid-19, according to a White House official . Joe Biden “will remain in the White House tomorrow to continue working to advance these two bills”, one devoted to infrastructure, the other to social spending, which he has made a major issue of his mandate .
The adoption of these two plans, the cumulative amount of which was initially announced at nearly $ 5 trillion, comes up against a fratricidal battle between Democrats. The most left-wing elected officials are pushing for simultaneous adoption of the two texts. The centrists would like to vote first on infrastructure, more consensual investments, and take more time for the social aspect.
Global financial disaster
To make matters worse, the American Congress faces another project, at the same time very different, and yet intimately linked to the debate on Joe Biden’s plans: to avoid nothing less than the first sovereign default of the United States, which could intervene from October 18. Democrats and Republicans theoretically agree: a US default would cause global financial catastrophe with severe repercussions for Americans.
This does not prevent the Conservatives from blocking any maneuver bringing together the two parties on the subject. “It is imperative that Congress quickly resolve the debt limit. If this is not the case, America will default for the first time in history ”, Janet Yellen, Secretary of the Treasury, warned before the Senate Banking Committee.
Joe Biden’s Finance Minister warned to expect “the Treasury will end up with very limited resources that will run out quickly” after the Oct. 18 date. “Waiting until the last minute can seriously damage business and consumer confidence, increase borrowing costs for taxpayers, and negatively impact America’s credit rating for years to come,” recalled the manager.
“Let’s stop talking about it”
The debt limit of the United States, which only Congress has the prerogative to raise, which it has done on numerous occasions and most often by mutual agreement between Democrats and Republicans, came into force on the 1st. August. It prohibits the United States from issuing new loans unless the current limit of $ 28.4 trillion is raised.
Democrats do not have enough clout in Congress to override the obstructionist power of Republicans, at a time when partisan divides, exacerbated during the Trump presidency, appear to have become insurmountable in the United States. The Republicans categorically refuse to raise the debt ceiling, because it would amount to giving Joe Biden carte blanche for his “irresponsible” investment plans.
«Shutdown»
The conservative opposition therefore wants the Democrats to resolve this issue of funding limits on their own, by employing a tortuous parliamentary maneuver. What the Democrats refuse. Since the 1960s, the debt ceiling has been raised or suspended some 80 times. Never has a party blocked this measure.
And as if the budget and parliamentary tangle were not already tangled enough, Congress must also imperatively adopt before Thursday evening, midnight, a new federal government budget to prevent public funds from being suddenly cut (“shutdown”) .
This measure is also a consensus according to the statements of each other. But here too, Senate Republicans are blocking it so far, because they want to vote it separately from any decision on the debt ceiling. The Democratic leaders of Congress must therefore propose a new text focused solely on the budget.
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