It was 39 days and 20 hours after the start of the longest partial government shutdown in U.S. history when the spark of agreement at the Capitol went out. The matter reached the public at 7 p.m. on Sunday, with news that Democrats and Republicans had reached an agreement in the Senate to reopen the federal administration’s funding pipeline.
A proposal submitted hours ago by Senate Republicans, headed by their leader John Thune, succeeded in convincing three competing senators, Angus King (Maine), Jeanne Shaheen, and Maggie Hassan (New Hampshire). With them, the conservative caucus summed up the 60 votes needed to win the qualified majority required by Senate rules for silent decisions; For example, they will presupuestarias.
This agreement is not the last stop on the crossing closeWhich caused the suspension of the food voucher program for millions of people in need, forced thousands of employees, deprived of their income, to pay hamber and led to chaos at airports across the country, even better than the beginning of the end of the storm.
There are still three extraordinary votes in Camara Alta before the end of the day, usually in the Capitol, which is an exception this Sunday given the circumstances. The agreement will then be transferred to the House of Representatives for ratification.
Not all points of agreement were immediately clear. But if you guarantee funding for the federal administration up to $30, if the disharmony between the two parties continues, the fighting could return to its starting point and spark a new crisis.
The supposed bill includes a provision related to a point demanded by Democrats: readmitting federal employees who were laid off during the winter, and ensuring that no major modifications are made to the plan until the end of the year. It also ends the threat made by Donald Trump that employees will not receive retroactive payments for wages they did not receive within those 40 days.
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Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer took the floor in this very place to present to his Republican rivals a proposal to reopen the Public Expenditure Department. Their bosses asked, as a condition of approving the year-long health subsidy program mandated by the law known as Obamacare, that they have since negotiated with the other party with the administration open, taking weeks from Thune’s demand.
“Republicans just have to decide who they are,” Schumer says. Republicans immediately responded in the negative.
Everything indicates that the agreement has been accelerated in the wake of the decision of the American Aviation Authority (FAA for its acronym in English) to cancel hundreds of flights at the 40 major airports in the United States in the early morning of next month to deal with low air saturation or the resignation of controllers and federal employees affected by the government administration. More than 1,600 flights were canceled Sunday and delays continued to mount on the third day of the Trump administration’s unprecedented measure.
The administrative blockade led to the closure or reduction of the activity of dozens of federal agencies due to lack of funds. About 13,000 air traffic controllers and thousands of airport security workers have arrived without receiving their salaries since October 1. Many people decide to cut their income to have another source of income so they can pay their mortgage, car loan, educate their children, or simply so they can fill their pantry.
There are 750,000 employees suspended and working, which continues on Sunday with a reasonable interest in the news coming from the Capitol. Employees who, like supervisors, have “essential” considerations, are obligated to participate in the work, but without being charged any fees.
Dozens of museums, monuments and national parks have been forced to close their doors, which, if the beginning of this Sunday’s agreement takes shape, will be able to reopen in the next few days, once their public funding resumes.
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