December 8th – U.S. government grants to almost all federal agencies will expire on December 11. According to USA Today, if Congress cannot reach a consensus on the appropriation bill within this week, the U.S. government may face a “stop” crisis before the end of this week.
On Monday (7th) local time, House Majority Leader Hoyer said that the House of Representatives will vote on Wednesday (9th) to extend the appropriation by one week to allow “negotiations to continue while ensuring that the government is open”. The House said that the negotiations would take more time to reach a long-term agreement.
Members of Congress have been arguing about the federal government’s funding plan. Previously, it was decided to continue the interim appropriation bill until after the general election until December. But due to the differences between Republicans and Democrats, the bill may not be agreed before the end of the week.
Analysis said that if the current Congress cannot reach any budget agreement during the session, the new Congress will have to clean up the mess in January 2021, just weeks before President-elect Biden takes office.
Before that, if funds were exhausted, the government would fall into a “downtime”, and many non-essential government workers would be forced to take leave or work unpaid work until the government ended the “down”.
The resulting chain reaction will affect many aspects, from airport operations to government health institutions responding to the epidemic.
