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21-12-2024
NEW YORK: A funny thing happened on the way to a bipartisan agreement to fund US government operations and avoid a partial shutdown this week.
Conservatives in Congress encouraged by tech multi-billionaire Elon Musk balked.
Republicans tried to regroup on Thursday afternoon, offering a new, slimmed-down package to fund the government. That vote failed, as 38 Republicans joined most Democrats in voting no.
All this political drama provides just a taste of the chaos and unpredictability that could be in store under unified Republican rule in Washington next year.
The man at the centre of this week’s drama holds no official government title or role. What Elon Musk does have, however, is hundreds of billions of dollars, a social media megaphone and the ear not just of the president of the United States but also rank-and-file conservatives in Congress.
On Wednesday morning, the tech tycoon took to X, which he purchased for $44bn two years ago, to disparage a compromise that Republican Speaker of the House Mike Johnson had struck with Democrats to temporarily fund US government operations until mid-March.
As the number of his posts about the proposed agreement stretched into triple digits, at times amplifying factually inaccurate allegations made by conservative commentators, opposition to the legislation in Congress grew.
And by Wednesday evening, Donald Trump perhaps sensing that he needed to get in front of the growing conservative uprising publicly stated that he, too, opposed the government funding bill.
He said it contained wasteful spending and Democratic priorities, while also demanding that Congress take the politically sensitive step of raising – or even doing away with, the legal cap on newly issued American debt that the US would reach sometime next summer.
Support for the stopgap spending bill then collapsed, forcing Johnson and his leadership team to scramble to find an alternative path forward. As they did, Musk celebrated, proclaiming that “the voice of the people has triumphed”.
It may be more accurate, however, to say that it was Musk’s voice that triumphed.
On Thursday afternoon, Republicans unveiled a new proposal that suspended the debt limit for the first two years of Trump’s second term, funded the government until March and included some disaster relief and other measures included in the original funding package but Musk’s involvement may not land well with some legislators. Democrats in the chamber joked about “President Musk”, while even a few Republicans publicly grumbled.
“Who?” Pennsylvania Republican Glenn Thompson responded when asked about Musk. “I don’t see him in the chamber.”
Musk may have been the instigator, but this latest congressional funding crisis reveals what has been and is likely to continue to be an ongoing challenge for the narrow Republican majority in the House of Representatives.
For two years, Republicans in the chamber have grappled with keeping a united front amidst a party populated, at least in part, by politicians with an active contempt for the government they help to run.
Internal divisions delayed Kevin McCarthy’s election as speaker of the House in January 2022 and led to his removal – a first in American history – the following year. Johnson ultimately replaced him, but only after weeks of leaderless limbo.
Some Republicans had hoped that with Trump’s election, members of their majority, which will become even slimmer when the new Congress is sworn in next month, would be more willing to march in lockstep to support the new president’s agenda. (Int’l News Desk)
