The Looming Shutdown, Another Presidential Candidate Down, and Hunter Biden Faces his Critics
Hello everyone and welcome back to another week of Politics Explained! If you’re new here, we write short and concise weekly blogs that sum up the most pressing events on Capitol Hill and in US politics. Another week has passed with this week a Presidential candidate dropped out, an agreement on spending for 2024 has been reached (maybe?), and Hunter Biden is back. With that being said let's dive right in!
Early this week, Speaker of the House Mike Johnson (R-LA) and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) reached an agreement on a new funding level for 2024. The $1.59 trillion agreement for Fiscal Year 2024 sets $886 billion for the military and $704 billion for non-defense spending. The agreement also reallocates $6.1 billion in unused COVID-19 money and $10 billion IRS dollars. The next step, now that they have the baseline of total money, is to allot the funds to all the appropriations bills and to write those 12 bills. The government has until next Friday (January 19) to write these bills and pass them, in order to keep the government running. President Joe Biden remarked “The bipartisan funding framework Congressional leaders have reached moves us one step closer to preventing a needless government shutdown and protecting important national priorities. It reflects the funding levels that I negotiated with both parties and signed into law last spring. Now, Congressional Republicans must do their job, stop threatening to shut down the government, and fulfill their basic responsibility to fund critical domestic and national security priorities, including my supplemental request. It’s time for them to act.” On Wednesday, 13 Republican members voted with the Democrats to block a random bill emphasizing their frustration with the new agreement. As some of the House members are undecided on their stance on this agreement, we will most likely see another extension bill keeping the government open, which will be the third time this has happened since the original government shutdown came to a close in October 2023.
Wednesday night, former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie decided there was no path for him to win the Republican Presidential nomination, so he decided to suspend his campaign. Christie said that he did not see a way for him to win the election anymore and decided it was time to end his campaign. Right after Christie announced the suspension of his campaign, he was caught on a hot mic bashing former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, saying specifically of Haley that she was not up to this, referring to the election. As Christie drops out of this election, a majority of his anti-Trump supporters will most likely migrate to Haley. There will be more to come on the 2024 Election, so stay tuned!
The House Judiciary and Oversight Committees have voted to hold Hunter Biden, President Joe Biden’s son, in contempt of Congress. These votes were, as expected, along party lines, and will lead to a future vote on the House Floor. In a surprising turn, Hunter Biden himself showed up to the Oversight Committee’s hearing, where Representative Nancy Mace (R-SC) attacked him, asking "What are you afraid of?" (in reference to Hunter Biden’s willingness to provide public but not private testimony before the Committee) and said, “You have no balls.” Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D-FL) came to Hunter’s defense, saying that they could depose him right now in the hearing, but Republicans would not agree, as they still continue to push for a closed door deposition.*
*Definition of the Week: Deposition - the process of giving sworn evidence.
