November 22, 2021
We’re getting closer and closer to a two-pronged crisis. Hitting the debt ceiling and facing a government shutdown on December 3rd. The solution is also two-pronged. Congress needs to pass a spending bill to keep the government funded for the fiscal year *and* either suspend or raise the debt ceiling.
A little bit of good news — the Treasury Secretary just gave lawmakers a little breathing room to come up with a deal – at least for one of those crises.
And that one crisis is the debt ceiling. That’s because in a letter to House and Senate leadership, the Secretary Janet Yellen said she now thinks… with “a high degree of confidence” that her department will be able to finance the government through December 15. (but that date is fluid) the original date she gave for the federal government to default on its debt was December 3rd. The same day as the scheduled government shutdown.
So what happened? Where did treasury get the money to float the government for another week and half? Secretary Yellen says it came as a result of the bi-partisan infrastructure bill that just passed the house and senate last week. Basically Treasury is getting creative with the money allocated in the bill for the highway trust fund.
But Secretary Yellen also warned “there are scenarios,” that would leave the government without enough cash beyond that date and encouraged lawmakers to stop messing around and either raise or suspend the debt ceiling so we can avoid dire consequences. And honestly – at this moment – it’s completely unclear how congress plans to fix it.
If you don’t understand what the debt ceiling is, and what those actual consequences are for you if the US government fully defaults on its debt for the first time in history– please go watch the first two videos in the debt ceiling category on my page.
Also – it’s worth keeping on your radar – that congress basically has two weeks to come up with a deal to keep the government from shutting down on December third.
Yeah – so there’s that too.
PLUS
Today is the deadline for about 3.5 million federal employees to be vaccinated after the President’s September executive order mandating the Covid19 vaccine with no testing option.
The white house reports – as of today—90% of all federal employees are fully vaccinated and an additional 5% either have their first dose or have “a pending or approved exception or extension request.”
What about the other 5% of the federal workforce with no valid exemption who have not been vaccinated? The White House says those employees won’t face immediate dismissal. Instead, federal agencies that employee those people will continue to process documentation and consider their exemptions. There will be continued “education and counseling” for employees who haven’t complied. But that may be “followed by additional enforcement steps” like ultimately, being fired.
But what about all the lawsuits? Well, there have been a few against this particular mandate specifically for federal employees and so far, the judges hearing those cases have denied the plaintiff’s requests for an immediate injunction to put a temporary pause or stop to the rule.
And as I have been reporting every vaccine mandate is completely separate and have nothing to do with each other. Their authorities are all different, their mechanisms are all different and the subjects of them are different. To put it simply, if one is found to be invalid – that does *not* automatically make all of them invalid. Each have to go through the courts.
The White House says the specific breakdown of each government agency’s compliance will be released by the office of management and budget in the coming days.
Read the Covid19 Response Team announcement about the employee compliance here.
Read POTUS executive order for all federal employees here.
