NEWS
McCarthy’s Speakership Threatened As Government Shutdown Nears
Courtesy of kltv7/Instagram
Late-night votes Thursday in the House of Representatives didn’t bring lawmakers any closer to averting a federal shutdown when the fiscal year ends Saturday night.
House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) has struggled to unite Republicans behind a deal, as more conservative members push for widespread domestic spending cuts and take a hard line against more aid to Ukraine in its fight against Russia.
McCarthy was hoping to pass separate bills to fund the departments of Defense, Homeland Security, Agriculture and State. The bill to fund Agriculture failed, and the bills that passed have no hope of passing in the Senate.
Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) has been McCarthy’s chief antagonist, threatening to call a vote to remove him from the speakership.
In addition to offering an amendment to strip Ukraine aid from a defense appropriations bill, Gaetz on Thursday introduced an amendment to cut $4.5 billion from the budget of USAID, the country’s international aid agency.
“USAID is a vehicle through which the American taxpayer pays for economic development in other countries. I think instead, we should spend more money on the economic development of our country,” Gaetz said.
“America is going into deeper debt to pay off the debt of Ukraine. I’m trying to stop it,” Gaetz posted on X, formerly Twitter.
In the Democratic-led Senate, meanwhile, efforts to pass a bipartisan continuing resolution, or CR, that would temporarily fund the government through Nov. 17 are being held up by Sen. Rand Paul’s (R-Ky.) objection to the $6.2 billion in aid to Ukraine it provides.
The Senate’s plan would maintain funding at current levels in addition to providing $6 billion for domestic disaster relief and $6 billion for aid to Ukraine. The bill is unlikely to be supported by the House, which has a slim Republican majority.
McCarthy has also suggested amending the Senate’s CR to include border security measures demanded by some conservatives in the House, and some Senate Republicans are also eyeing border amendments.
“The bill put forward by Leader Schumer contains several priorities requested by Democrats but zero priorities requested by Republicans: border security funding being first and foremost to address the crisis at our Southern border that President Biden created,” Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) posted on X.
The White House, meanwhile, has warned that a government shutdown would force millions of federal employees to be furloughed, with members of the military and agencies such as the Transportation Security Administration forced to continue working without pay.
The administration also said that the shutdown of the Small Business Administration would prevent small business owners from accessing more than $100 million in financing per day.
“Each weekday the government is shut down, hundreds of small businesses would see their 7(a) and 504 loan applications fail to move forward. That means extreme House Republicans would deny more than $100 million in critical financing to American small businesses every day,” the White House said in a statement.
A shutdown would also jeopardize food assistance for nearly 7 million women and children Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC), the White House said.
“It’s not good for the United States to catch a government shutdown cold right now,” said Ted Jenkin, co-founder of Exit Stage Left Advisors. “In the midst of inflation and interest rates continuing to hammer families, our politicians need to stop putting us in a position where the world will lose confidence in the dollar and full faith and credit of the United States.”
TMX contributed to this article.
