White House and congressional officials announced on Tuesday March 19 that they have reached an agreement to continue funding the American federal administration, a text that must be adopted before the end of the week. “We reached an agreement with Congress leaders”Without specifying the budget amount, Joe Biden announced in a press release.
The United States has been struggling for months to pass a fiscal bill for 2024. Caught in partisan bickering, Congress has so far only managed to pass a series of small-legislation to stretch the federal state budget by a few days, a few months at most.
As soon as one of these mini-budgets is about to expire, as one of them should be on Friday, there is a risk that the federal administration will partially shut down, in what Americans call a shutdown.
The list of possible outcomes is long: unpaid air traffic controllers, shut down administrations, frozen food aid, unregulated national parks.
The agreement announced on Tuesday would extend the US budget through the end of the fiscal year, September 30. It must now be adopted in the House of Representatives, the Senate, then promulgated by the President of the United States to eliminate this threat. The text adopted on March 9 made it possible to complete the second part of the 2024 budget.
