New twist in Washington: conservatives launched a procedure on Friday to dismiss the leader of the House of Representatives, Republican Mike Johnson, after a vote on the government budget which they consider far too wasteful. Elected official Marjorie Taylor Greene, close to Donald Trump, said she had filed a motion to oust the leader of the institution, whom she accused of “treason”.
“We need a new speaker,” she told journalists, accusing the manager, only in office since October, of being in the “arms of the Democrats.” The elected official from Georgia, well known for her escapades, her provocations and her insulting remarks, justified this measure by assuring that the budget of 1.200 billion dollars adopted by the House earlier in the day did not defend the interests of her party . However, it is imperative for both houses of Congress to approve this text before midnight to avoid a sudden drying up of the federal state’s finances.
This paralysis, which the Americans call “shutdown”, cannot still be ruled out, since the timetable is still very vague on the holding of a vote in the Senate, itself shaken by Republican mutinies.
A second speaker dismissed in a few months?
Marjorie Taylor Greene’s announcement of the impeachment procedure caused shock waves in the American capital. But it is not yet very clear when this measure will be debated, nor its chances of success. This twist, although spectacular, also has a real air of déjà vu. Former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy was impeached only a few months ago in a very similar scenario.
Will Mike Johnson be the second Republican leader to bear the brunt of budget negotiations? The tension surrounding the adoption of these budget laws is such that the United States has so far failed to adopt any budget for 2024 — a situation that no other major world economy is facing. confronted. Parliamentarians have so far only been able to adopt a series of mini-laws to extend the federal state budget by a few days, or a few months at most.
As soon as one of these mini-budgets is about to expire, as one of them should be on Friday, there is a risk that the federal administration will be partially shut down. Which would happen Friday at midnight, without a Senate vote. The list of potential consequences of a state paralysis is long: unpaid soldiers and transport security agents, administrations at a standstill, certain aid frozen… A situation extremely unpopular with Americans and most of whose effects would be felt at the start of the week.
The bill prohibits direct funding to UNRWA
If ultimately passed, the bill presented Thursday would extend the US budget until the end of the fiscal year, September 30. This 1,012-page text, the result of very acrimonious negotiations, contains measures which would have strong repercussions abroad. The text thus prohibits any direct funding from the United States to the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, at the heart of a controversy since Israel accused 12 of its approximately 13,000 employees in Gaza at the end of January of being involved in the deadly October 7 attack perpetrated by Hamas. The bill under debate on Friday also contains hundreds of millions of dollars for Taiwan, but does not release any funding for Ukraine, with the envelope for kyiv being the subject of separate negotiations.
The text debated on Friday also contains several measures linked to immigration – an explosive subject in the middle of the presidential campaign – and a litany of measures, not necessarily linked to the budget. Like the ban on American embassies from flying the rainbow flag, the standard of the LGBT+ community, contrary to what some of them were accustomed to doing on the occasion of “pride month”. A text adopted on March 9 had already made it possible to complete another part of the 2024 budget.