At the last minute, Congress reached a deal that President Joe Biden signed to avoid a government shutdown. It was set to happen on Oct. 1 at 12:01 a.m. if Congress could not reach a deal to cut spending. This pressure to cut spending comes after the national debt reached an all time high, hitting $32.6 trillion in August. Additionally, the deal drops aid to Ukraine, which many GOP lawmakers oppose and which was a White House priority. On the other hand, it also increases federal disaster assistance by $16 billion at Biden’s request. He said that theU.S. “cannot under any circumstances allow American support for Ukraine to be interrupted.”
The deal was reached after House Speaker at the time Kevin McCarthy gave up on demands by Republicans to significantly cut spending and instead relied on Democrats to pass the bill. The bill was sent to the Senate, where it passed before being signed by Biden. However, this move by McCarthy proved to be very risky to his job, as he became the first House speaker in U.S. history to be voted out of his position. This came after eight Republicans and all the Democrats in the House voted to remove McCarthy from his office. Biden said he expected that McCarthy “will keep his commitment to the people of Ukraine and secure passage of the support needed to help Ukraine at this critical moment.” However, now that McCarthy has been ousted, it is unclear if the new speaker of the House will share this goal.
Although the government shutdown did not happen this time, the deal is only valid for 45 days. If Congress cannot reach a new deal by the end of this 45 day period — which ends on Nov. 17 — a government shutdown will actually take place. And at the moment, it is not clear whether they will be able to avoid another shutdown. The House has recently passed four bills that significantly cut spending, but it is very unlikely that they will get past the Senate. Both political parties will need to agree on a spending bill, a topic on which they have very different viewpoints, and this is likely to be a struggle.
