Reuters-McCarthy says Biden must tighten border to avert US government shutdown
September 26, 2023 4 min 706 words
这篇报道涉及到美国政府关停危机以及共和党议长凯文·麦卡锡对总统乔·拜登提出的紧急边境限制要求。这是一个关乎国家政治和财政的重要议题，值得深入关注。 首先，麦卡锡的提议是为了避免美国政府第四次在过去十年内关停，这是一项严重的问题。然而，他的提议似乎不太可能解决当前的政府支出争议，因为拜登和掌握参议院的民主党已经拒绝了共和党的边境计划。双方的立场似乎相去甚远。 在政府资金将在周六午夜用尽之前，参议院准备投票通过一项跨党派的支出法案，以确保政府继续运作，并给谈判代表更多时间就全年支出数额达成协议。而麦卡锡则准备了一项临时支出法案，旨在重启美墨边境墙的建设，并收紧移民政策，这是前总统唐纳德·特朗普的标志性政策。然而，这些政策几乎可以确定会被拜登和参议院拒绝。 当前的僵局可能会导致数十万联邦工作人员被停职，以及从经济数据发布到营养福利等一系列服务在周日开始中断。这种情况引起了信用评级机构穆迪的担忧，尽管不清楚是否会对美国的信用价值造成影响，因为过去的政府关停并没有对全球最大的经济体产生重大影响。 值得注意的是，这一危机还将影响到2024年的总统选举，前总统特朗普，共和党总统候选人的领先者，表现出支持政府关停的立场。 总之，这篇报道凸显了美国政府关停问题的严重性，以及两党在政府支出和边境政策方面的分歧。这种政治僵局对国家稳定和全球经济都可能产生不良影响，需要各方妥善解决。
U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Kevin McCarthy on Tuesday called on President Joe Biden to agree to tight border restrictions in order to prevent wide swaths of the U.S. government from shutting down for the fourth time in a decade.
Republican McCarthy's proposal is not likely to resolve a high-stakes spending battle that could idle hundreds of thousands of federal workers on Sunday, as Biden and his fellow Democrats who control the Senate have already rejected Republican border plans.
With only five days to spare, the two chambers are taking sharply divergent paths.
The Senate is preparing to vote on a bipartisan spending bill that would keep the government operating after current money runs out at midnight on Saturday (0400 GMT Sunday), giving negotiators more time to agree on full-year spending numbers.
McCarthy, meanwhile, is readying a stopgap spending bill that would restart construction of the U.S.-Mexico border wall, a signature policy of former President Donald Trump and tighten immigration policies.
Those policies are certain to be rejected by Biden and the Senate. But on Tuesday, McCarthy called on the president and Democrats to reconsider.
"To keep the government open, if the president was willing to change part of his plan along this border, we can fund this government going forward," McCarthy told reporters.
"Let's do something on the border, keep the government open and show this nation that we can do it right, and solve the rest of our problems as we go."
Hundreds of thousands of federal workers will be furloughed and a wide range of services, from economic data releases to nutrition benefits, will be suspended beginning on Sunday if the two sides do not reach agreement. In Washington, the National Zoo says it would have to curtail its farewell party for three giant pandas before they return to China.
The standoff has caused concern at credit rating agency Moody's, though it is unclear whether it will hurt U.S. creditworthiness, as past shutdowns have not had a significant impact on the world's largest economy.
It is also factoring into the 2024 presidential election, with Trump, the front-runner for the Republican nomination, cheering on the shutdown talk.
Biden and McCarthy had aimed to head off a shutdown this year when they agreed in May, at the end of a standoff over the federal debt ceiling, to discretionary spending of $1.59 trillion for the fiscal year beginning Oct. 1.
Lawmakers on McCarthy's right flank have since rejected that number, demanding $120 billion in cuts, even as more moderate members of their party including top Senate Republicans voiced support for the agreed-on plan.
That only accounts for a fraction of the total U.S. budget, which will come to $6.4 trillion for this fiscal year. Lawmakers are not considering cuts to popular benefit programs like Social Security and Medicare, which are projected to grow dramatically as the population ages.
Biden himself has called on House Republicans to honor McCarthy's deal.
Bowing to their concerns, McCarthy has teed up a procedural vote on Tuesday evening to take up four spending bills for the coming fiscal year that reflect conservative priorities and stand no chance of becoming law.
If Tuesday's vote succeeds, lawmakers would try to pass the four measures out of the House later in the week. They would not fund the full government or prevent a shutdown.
Republicans control the House by a narrow 221-212 majority and have few votes to spare, particularly since some Republican hardliners have threatened to move to oust McCarthy from his leadership role if he relies on Democratic votes to pass legislation.
That could complicate any effort to pass a stopgap spending bill and avert a shutdown.
Congress has shut down the government 14 times since 1981, though most of those funding gaps have lasted only a day or two.