Biden endeavors to contain looming shutdown

U. S. President Joe Biden continued meeting key Senators on Tuesday in an attempt to gather flagging support for his economic plan of USD 3.5 trillion federal budget bill, which Republicans blocked yesterday.
Biden also virtually meets with governors, mayors, and other state officials to discuss the bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act amid partisan tensions that are rattling the U. S. economy’s recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic.
With federal government funding due to expire on Thursday and borrowing authority set to run out around 18 October, to avoid twin fiscal disasters, Biden met Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell who has insisted that Democrats use a parliamentary maneuver to temporarily lift the government’s USD 28.4 trillion debt limit without Republican votes, although Democrats note that about USD 5 trillion of the nation’s debt is the result of tax cuts and spending passed during Republican Donald Trump’s presidency.
The two critical deadlines have added complications during this autumn for Democrats, who are deeply divided over a pair of bills worth USD 4.5 trillion that form the core of Biden’s agenda.
Lawmakers now have just three days to avert a possible government shutdown by Thursday midnight, the end of the current fiscal year. Failure to reach an agreement would lead to unpaid leave for hundreds of thousands of federal workers in the middle of the pandemic crisis.