The United States Senate approved this Friday, less than five hours before the limit for funds to run out this midnight, the partial budget for fiscal year 2024 with a planned expenditure of $460 billion.
With 75 votes in favor and 22 against, The Senate gave its approval to the project that had already been approved on Wednesday in the House of Representatives with 339 votes in favor and 85 against.
For a few hours there was much uncertainty about whether the Senate would be able to approve the project this Friday, but late in the afternoon an agreement was reached that allowed the vote to be scheduled.
Once approved by both chambers of Congress, US President Joe Biden must sign the project so that the Government can use the funds before they run out.
Fiscal year 2024 began on October 1, 2023, but Democrats and Republicans had not been able to agree on the accountsso Congress had approved up to four budget extensions to avoid an administrative closure due to lack of funds.
The first of these extensions, in fact, caused the fall of the then president of the Lower House, Republican Kevin McCarthy, within a fratricidal war of the conservatives.
What was approved this Friday is a 1,050-page macro bill that encompasses six budget laws and represents more or less half of the state budget. Congress has until March 22 to approve the other half.
This partial budget includes funds for the departments of Agriculture, Commerce, Justice, part of Defense, Transportation, Interior or Energy. In total there are 460,000 million dollars.
Republicans have achieved cuts in some of their priorities, such as the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), which will see its budget reduced by $10.1 billion in 2023 to $9.2 billion now.
Likewise, an increase of 212 million dollars has been agreed to the allocation for nuclear programs of the Department of Energy, which amounts to 1.69 billion dollars.
Paradoxically, The White House plans to present its requests for the fiscal year 2025 budget next week when Congress will not yet have approved the entire 2024 budget.
Every time an administrative closure is less than a week away, the White House activates a protocol to prepare all its departments.
A government shutdown means sending hundreds of thousands of employees home without work or pay public and the paralysis of a multitude of services.
The last closure of this type occurred during the Presidency of Republican Donald Trump (2017-2021) and was, with 35 days (from December 22, 2018 to January 29, 2019), the longest in history during the Christmas holidays. .
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