The Senate approved the budget proposal on Wednesday evening (local time), after the House of Representatives had already approved it. Now President Joe Biden just has to sign it.
American policy must reach an agreement every year on the new year’s budget. Without such an agreement, spending will have to be temporarily reduced. This means that millions of civil servants who work in the defence, regulators, coastguard and national parks sectors, for example, will not receive their wages for a short time.
This threatened to happen again. If politicians do not reach an agreement this week, the government will have to close some of its activities. So it didn’t come to that.
However, the joy will not last long. There will be a new deadline in just over two months. Part of the Republican Party has already indicated that it will not simply agree to a new proposal.
Earlier this fall, a tentative budget agreement was also reached. It cost House Speaker Kevin McCarthy his head. The next deadline is January 19.
