Last night's passage by the US Senate of the bill to end the longest budget paralysis in US history is a major topic in Western publications, according to which the vote showed the rift among the Democratic Party representatives in the upper house of parliament.
"Deal on government work revives internal struggles among Democrats" is the headline in the American newspaper "New York Times". The vote sparked a backlash within the party, not only against the "defectors" who supported the bill, but also against Senator Chuck Schumer, the Senate minority leader, who did not support it, the publication added.
"The fierce criticism came from all corners of the Democratic Party. Moderate members of the House of Representatives, progressive senators, self-proclaimed rebels and people from the political elite expressed the same fierce disagreement with the agreement that eight senators made to end the longest government shutdown in the country," wrote for the "New York Times" Michael Gold reports from Capitol Hill.
Democratic critics slammed the compromise the Senate passed yesterday, saying it did nothing to address their party's key demand in the 41-day battle to extend the health care subsidy deadline, which expires at the end of this calendar year. Senate Democrats tried unsuccessfully to tie federal government funding to health insurance.
In the end, the 60-40 government spending package missed the main concession that the Democratic Party had been pushing for for weeks, the "New York Times" emphasized.
For US President Donald Trump, nothing was off limits during the budget paralysis, which lasted 41 days, 1 hour and 18 minutes from the beginning to the vote, the "New York Times" points out. The president put pressure on Democrats by taking punitive action that no previous administration had taken during a government shutdown, the American newspaper notes, adding that the next step is to submit the bill to the House of Representatives. The Speaker of the House of Representatives, Mike Johnson, said he wants the vote to take place tomorrow and then the law to be signed by President Trump.
The shutdown has left hundreds of thousands of federal employees on forced leave, with millions of Americans at risk of losing social benefits, and millions more affected by chaos in air transport, the "New York Times" emphasizes.
The publication quotes Trump's comment about the leader of the Democratic minority in the Senate, Chuck Schumer. "He thought he could break the Republicans, but the Republicans broke him," the president said of Schumer in an interview with "Fox News". After a key Democrat in the Senate agreed to drop the party's demand that Republicans fund health care subsidies before funding the government, some Democrats lashed out at Schumer and called for him to step down as leader, the American newspaper points out.
Democrats split in Senate, paving the way for an end to budget paralysis, reads the leading headline in the same vein as the "New York Times" of the French newspaper "Le Monde".
After forty days of deadlock, eight opposition senators gave way on Sunday, joining forces with Republicans on a bill aimed at reopening the federal government. The move was criticized within their own party, the French publication points out, referring to the procedural vote in the US Senate that moved the bill to end the budget paralysis forward.
"The Democrats were the first to give in. Or rather, a handful of them. Seven Democrats and one independent sided with the Republicans on Sunday, November 9. They voted in favor of moving forward with the budget bill that paves the way for an end to the paralysis. Most federal government activities were suspended due to lack of funding on October 1. Republican senators, who hold 53 seats to Democrats' 47, needed at least eight votes to reach the necessary majority of 60, as one of them had defected," Le Monde continues.
The French newspaper notes that with the extension of subsidies worth several hundred billion dollars, which Democrats wanted, millions of low-income Americans would receive a significant increase in their health insurance.
"A deal to reopen the government has been passed by the Senate and is heading to the House of Representatives", notes the American newspaper "Washington Post". Before the Senate passed the bill, the House of Representatives, which will meet on Capitol Hill for the first time in 50 days, was already gearing up to accept the bipartisan agreement reached over the weekend, the newspaper notes.
“I could spend an hour talking about all the problems we've faced, which are snowballing the longer this paralysis continues,“ Senate Majority Leader John Thune (D-South Dakota) said in a statement last night, the newspaper notes. “The Washington Post” The Independent Senator from Maine, Angus King, joined the six Democrats on the Republican side, while the Republican Senator from Kentucky, Randall Paul, voted "no".
The bipartisan compromise combines three full-year funding mechanisms for certain government departments into one package, along with a temporary funding bill for the rest of the government until January 30, the publication said.
The bill passed the US Senate due to "retreat among Democrats", is the leitmotif in the British newspaper "Financial Times". Another newspaper in the United Kingdom, "The Telegraph", points out that the adoption of the bill has removed another obstacle for Trump, who promised that he would "reopen" his country "very quickly".