The president of the United States, Joe Biden, signed in extremis on the evening of September 30 the law that placed new funds for the functioning of the US federal government until early December. Without the green light for the measure, approved a few hours earlier by both branches of Congress, we would have moved towards the so-called shutdown: the paralysis of all federal activities, with hundreds of thousands of employees suspended and without pay.
However, the text signed by Biden does not provide for the measure, requested by the Democrats, to suspend the ceiling on the federal debt, which today reached a record figure of 28.5 trillion dollars. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has made it clear that a text to raise or “freeze” the ceiling will have to be voted on by October 18, to avoid drastic consequences on the national economy. The Republicans are opposed and do not seem willing to change the line.
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Democrats still divided on the Biden agenda, vote postponed to today
In the meantime, the ok to the text on the loans avoids the risk of a shutdown that had already occurred in 2013 and 2018, but crosses with a moment that is far from easy for the Biden administration. The US president is trying to carry out the two pivotal projects of his political and economic agenda, the $ 1.2 trillion plan for infrastructure and the $ 3.5 trillion in social and environmental spending over a decade.
But the two initiatives are getting stuck in the all internal tensions between the Democrats, split between moderates and progressives: the former are in favor only of the infrastructural plan, which also enjoys the assistance of the Republicans; the latter link their support for infrastructures to the guarantee of a quick vote on the social and environmental program. After a night of negotiations between the two souls of the party, the Dems were unable to find an agreement, postponing the vote on the infrastructural level to 1 October (after it had already been postponed since last 27 September). The far left wing of the Democrats refuses to compromise on a program that would include tax hikes on wealthier citizens and corporations in favor of health and education.