US Senate And House Of Representatives Submit Separate Expenditure Plans, Opportunities For Closing Parts Of Government Increase

US Capitol Hill Building. (Wikimedia Commons/Architect of the Capitol)

JAKARTA - The United States Senate (US) led by the Democratic Party on Thursday went ahead with a bipartisan provisional funding bill, to prevent the closure of a fourth partial Government Shutdown in a decade, while the US House of Representatives is preparing to vote on a draft Republican partisan spending law that does not have the opportunity to become a law.

The difference in pathways between the two legislative rooms increases the possibility that federal institutions will run out of funds on Sunday, lay off hundreds of thousands of federal workers and stop various services from releasing economic data to nutrition benefits.

The Senate voted 76-22 to open debates over a draft temporary law known as a sustainable resolution, or CR, which will extend federal spending until November 17, authorizing about USD 6 billion each for domestic disaster response funding and aid to Ukraine for the Russian invasion.

The Senate decision has been rejected by the Republican Party, which controls the House of Representatives.

The House of Representatives plans to vote late into the night regarding four draft laws on the allocation of partisan funds that will not only prevent the closure of the government, even if the draft law can overcome strong opposition from the Democratic Party and become a law.

Republican House of Representatives, led by a small, hardline conservative faction in the assembly they control by a margin of 221-212, has rejected spending levels for the 2024 fiscal year set in a deal negotiated by US House Speaker Kevin McCarthy with President Joe Biden in May.

The funding struggle focused on a fraction of the US budget of 6.4 trillion US dollars for this fiscal year. MPs are not considering cutting popular allowance programs such as Social Security and Medicare.

McCarthy himself faces strong pressure from his causal to achieve their goals. Several hardline groups threatened to remove him from office When the US House of Representatives passed a draft state spending law requiring votes from the Democratic Party to be passed.

McCarthy himself on Thursday assessed that the closure of government could be avoided if the Democratic Senate agreed to address border issues as their temporary measure.

"I spoke this morning with some Democratic senators there who are more in line with what we want to do. They want to do something about the border," McCarthy told reporters at the US Congress Building.

"We are trying to see if we can put some border provisions into the current Senate bill that will really make things better," he said.

Meanwhile, the House of Representatives' Freedom Caucus, which is home to hardline groups urging McCarthy, in an open letter to him on Thursday, demanded a deadline to pass seven remaining allocation laws, as well as plans to further reduce the number of major discretionary spending, among other questions.

"No Congressman can or is expected to consider supporting temporary funding measures, without answering these reasonable questions," wrote a letter initiated by the group chairman and Republican House of Representatives Scott Perry.

The Senate's own decision has passed two procedural hurdles this week with strong bipartisan support.

"Congress has only one option, one option to avoid closing the government, bipartisan," Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said Thursday.

"With bipartisans, we can fund the government responsibly and avoid unnecessary adverse effects on the American people and the economy, due to the closure of the government," he said.

Without a bipartisan agreement between senators to speed up the parliamentary process, the Senate will most likely not take temporary action until the government closes.

It is known that the US House of Representatives is expected to vote on Friday regarding its own short-term funding measure. The success of a sustainable resolution may depend on whether Republican House of Representatives members can pass the 2024 fiscal spending bill for domestic, defense, agriculture and operations of the State and Foreign Department in a polling session which is expected to end after midnight on Thursday.

Three of the draft laws, defense, foreign and agricultural operations, were opposed by some Republicans, lawmakers said.