The US Congress passed the budget for the current fiscal year, approving a record amount for defense and further military aid to Ukraine.
On Friday, the House of Representatives, still controlled by the Democrats, voted a few hours before the deadline for the package with a volume of almost $ 1.7 trillion.
The Senate approved the more than 4,000-page bill on Thursday with the support of 18 Republicans. For their part, some Republicans in the House of Representatives have sharply criticized the spending plans.
Among other things, they demanded that the Europeans should provide more funds for Ukraine. Republicans take power in the Congress Chamber in January.
The draft budget now has to be signed by President Joe Biden. The bill allocates $858 billion to the Department of Defense – a record – after $740 billion last fiscal year. A further $44.9 billion in emergency aid is planned for Ukraine.
Republican Criticism: “$1.7 billion full of garbage”
Conservative Republican Rep. Tim Burchett called the total budget “$1.7 billion full of junk” that doesn’t take into account the cost it would impose on US citizens. Among them are “more than 45 billion for Ukraine, when Europe should actually bear the burden of this expenditure”.
Due to a severe winter storm and the upcoming holidays, many MPs had already left Washington by the time the vote was taken. The debate thus took place in front of a comparatively sparsely occupied Chamber. Numerous MPs took advantage of a change in procedure introduced during the coronavirus pandemic and cast their votes virtually.
In the US, it has become the norm that Congress fails to pass the federal budget regularly and on time. The new fiscal year began on October 1st, and the new law secures the funding of the federal institutions until September 30th, 2023.
Some Republicans, on the other hand, spoke out in advance for another transitional budget until early 2023, so that they could then use their control of the House of Representatives to make significant cuts in the budget. The Senate will continue to be controlled by Biden’s Democrats. The next congressional and presidential elections will take place in November 2024. (dpa)
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