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2023-10-27 Home Front: Politix
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More for Israel, less for Ukraine. The US Congress has decided on its priorities
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Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.
by Malek Dudakov
[REGNUM] The three-week saga in Washington has come to an end. After numerous attempts, lawmakers in Congress finally managed to approve a new speaker. The battles around the third post in the US government hierarchy have dragged on for a long time - and now they threaten America with serious complications on the external contour and a new round of the budget crisis.
There has never been such a prolonged paralysis of the work of Congress in modern US history. In 2015, the Republicans also staged a fierce fight for the post of speaker, but then they quickly rallied around a compromise figure in the person of Paul Ryan. Now, coming to a compromise has turned out to be much more difficult - against the backdrop of a strong split among Republicans and general antipathy towards Joe Biden’s policies.
The first speaker candidate was Steve Scalise , second in the hierarchy of Republicans in Congress. But he quickly dropped out of the race, realizing that he would not get the required number of votes in his support. He was replaced by Jim Jordan , a representative of the right wing of the Republicans. He tried unsuccessfully to be elected speaker three times. It didn’t help that Jordan’s supporters began to simply threaten those who did not want to vote for him - for this they even received a slap on the wrist from the Capitol police. Jordan also had to withdraw from the speaker election.
Then it was the turn of Tom Emmer, a representative of the establishment and third in the party hierarchy. But he also could not succeed. As a result, the choice fell on Congressman Mike Johnson from Louisiana, little known to the general public.
Johnson is not the most media personality in Congress. However, he is vice-chairman of the Republican Caucus in the lower house, which unites all legislators from the “elephant party”. In addition, Johnson holds important positions on the Judiciary Committee, through which all bills pass, and on the Armed Services Committee.
The newly appointed speaker received 220 votes in his support - a little more than half. He was supported by all right-wing Republicans who consider Johnson their man. After all, he consistently supported their agenda. In 2020, Johnson helped Donald Trump challenge the election results and prevent the recognition of Biden's victory, although unsuccessfully.
In recent years, Johnson has proposed bills to restrict abortion and teach gender theories in American schools. He demanded that federal grants be cut off for those educational institutions where this is practiced.
The fight against abortion and transgender people is becoming a key element of the Republican agenda in the upcoming elections.
In the context of the conflict in Ukraine, Johnson at the very beginning voted for a bill to provide Lend-Lease to Kyiv, although the White House never used this means. But since May 2022, when the level of support for Ukraine among Americans began to fall, Johnson began to consistently vote against any new tranches to Kyiv.
He demanded to begin by solving pressing issues for the United States. Johnson includes the migration crisis on the southern border of the United States, which is broken through by hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants every month. And also the drug addiction crisis - after all, about 100 thousand Americans die from opiate overdoses every year. And the crime crisis that has engulfed major US cities.
After being elected speaker, Johnson's first act was to pass a symbolic resolution in support of Israel. Almost all legislators voted for it - with the exception of the liberal faction of the Democratic Party, which accuses Israel of genocide of Palestinians and war crimes.
But now Johnson will immediately have to tackle the difficult budget impasse into which Washington has driven itself.
On the one hand, he is under pressure from right-wing Republicans and isolationists who demand a reduction in government spending, especially on wars.
After all, the US government budget deficit has now exceeded $2 trillion - and in the face of increased rates, servicing the national debt is becoming increasingly difficult. The yield on the 10-year US Treasury note has already risen above 5% for the first time since 2007. And the cost of mortgages for Americans is becoming the most expensive in almost 30 years, since the mid-90s.
On the other hand, Johnson also needs to pay attention to the opinions of hawks in both parties, as well as the White House.
They are demanding quick agreement on a massive $105 billion military budget that allocates $60 billion to Ukraine and divides the rest between Israel, Taiwan and securing the US southern border.
Hawks will probably try to block approval of the budget if money is not allocated to Ukraine and Israel. But there is no unity among them either - for example, many Republicans demand that Israel be made a priority recipient. They are confident that only he, unlike Ukraine, has a real chance of winning.
The newly elected speaker has only three weeks to resolve budget conflicts. By mid-November, the current short-term budget, adopted in September, will run dry. If by then it is not possible to agree on a new one, then America will again face a shutdown, that is, a suspension of government work. All civil servants, officials and military personnel will lose their salaries - and this is against the backdrop of at least two proxy wars being waged by the United States.
Lose their salaries? Bullshit. They always get paid retroactively, even though they weren't working (Civil Servants)
Speaker Johnson understands very well that he will not be forgiven for compromising with Biden and allocating large tranches to Ukraine. The right wing of the Republicans will immediately again organize the procedure for recalling the speaker and throw Johnson out of office, plunging Congress into a new situation of chaos.
Therefore, he will have to maneuver, allocating more money to Israel, less to Ukraine, while convincing the hawks that this is the only way they can get at least some tranches for waging wars. Most likely, a certain military budget will still be accepted for this matter. But Ukraine may not get 60 billion, but a significantly smaller amount.
For Kyiv, such a development of events will be extremely negative. After all, at the same time, Brussels is preparing to cut funding for Ukraine for next year. Military tranches are greatly delayed, and US missiles and shells in short supply are hastily redirected from Europe to Israel.
Kyiv will clearly not be able to conduct large-scale operations in these difficult conditions. Therefore, it is not surprising that Western capitals began to privately consider the possibility of negotiations with Russia and at least a temporary freeze of the conflict - for the period of the US election race in 2024.
The key task for Johnson is to try to somehow unite the Republicans ahead of very difficult elections for them in order to maintain a majority in Congress. An anti-Ukrainian consensus is already forming within the party, which is also expressed by Donald Trump, the clear favorite in the primaries. In polls, more than half of Americans oppose the allocation of new tranches to Kyiv.
On this platform - coupled with criticism of Biden for all the failures and chaos in the world - Trump hopes to win the next election. But to seriously change the status quo in Washington, he will need loyal support from the Republican Congress. This is what Johnson, whom Trump helped become speaker, will do.
The speaker election is over, but long budget battles lie ahead, followed by an equally fateful election season.
In the meantime, chaos and division in Washington are not going away - and they are further complicating the attempts of Biden’s apparatchiks to influence world processes in Eastern Europe, the Middle East or the Indo-Pacific region, which are beginning to go completely differently from the American scenario.
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