Tick, tock. The time is running out in Congress for Joe Biden, who seeks to avoid three major setbacks: a “shutdown” of federal state services on Friday for lack of funding, a default – which would be historic – on the debt in mid-October, and the adoption of two gigantic spending plans which could be threatened. Under pressure, the US president canceled a trip scheduled for Wednesday to Chicago to stay in Washington to try to negotiate with two centrist Democratic senators who hold part of his destiny in their hands.
Avoid a “shutdown” on Friday
Of the three, this is the least complicated. Congress needs to vote for a mini-budget to finance the functioning of the federal state. If it doesn’t make it by midnight Friday, it will be a shutdown. Ministries, national parks, museums… Hundreds of thousands of employees would find themselves technically unemployed. This has happened fairly regularly since the 1980s: twice under Trump, once under Obama, and twice under Clinton. They usually last less than a week – and there are most often wage catch ups – but the longest, at the end of 2018, had stretched for 35 days and cost the state several billion dollars.
Discussions continued for a vote on Wednesday or Thursday, and there appears to be a consensus among Democrats and Republicans to avoid a disaster scenario despite a four-dimensional chess game linking those votes to the others. Even if it means pushing back the deadline for a few weeks with a budget patch.
Avoid defaulting on debt
America lives on credit. Regularly, Congress must raise the debt “ceiling”, which prohibits the United States from issuing new loans to finance itself beyond a certain threshold. The current limit of 28.4 trillion dollars was reached in August, and the Treasury has stepped up exceptional measures to keep the country afloat since. Its secretary, Janet Yellen, has warned: Resources will run out on October 18. With the specter of a possible default, which has never happened and could cause interest rates to skyrocket and trigger a recession.
In Washington, Democrats attempted a poker game by tying the budget vote to avoid a shutdown to the one to raise the debt ceiling. Republicans pulled out the barbed wire, refusing to write Joe Biden a “blank check” to fund his spending programs. In theory, Democrats and their tiny majority (50 + 1 with Kamala Harris in the Senate) can fend for themselves through the “reconciliation” process. This mechanism makes it possible to adopt a text in the Senate by a simple majority instead of the 60 senators out of 100 usually required. Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer has warned: The parliamentary shuttle is “risky” and may not end on time.
Save two spending plans of nearly $ 5,000 billion
As if the situation were not delicate enough, these votes must take place while the two titanic investment plans wanted by Joe Biden – cornerstones of his mandate – are pending in Congress. In theory, the House must vote Thursday for an envelope – which is relatively unanimous – of $ 1.2 trillion for infrastructure. But dozens of left-wing elected officials threaten to torpedo the text if they do not get it before a vote is held on a $ 3.5 trillion program for climate and social reforms.
From the start, centrists Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema have been dragging their feet for the second, facing a figure deemed exorbitant. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Bernie Sanders and other progressives suspect them of intending to withdraw their support for this component as soon as they have achieved success in infrastructure, which is more easily “salable” to their constituents.
In this game of lying poker, Nancy Pelosi now faces a dilemma: to postpone once again the vote on infrastructure or force everyone to show their cards. With the risk of losing everything.