 The US might be moving towards another partial government shutdown with federal agencies set to run out of money soon. Why does this keep happening so regularly? Latest numbers from the UN refugee agency point to a horrific number of deaths among migrants fleeing to Europe. Why is the toll escalating? These are your stories for the day. This is the Daily Deep Brief. And before we go any further, if you're watching this on YouTube, please hit the subscribe button. Our first stories from the United States were legislators are scrambling to avoid a partial government shutdown. This comes as Republicans and Democrats were unable to agree on a deal for government spending, leading to concerns over the salaries of millions of federal employees. Now, this kind of dysfunction has become extremely common in the United States. And to understand why, we go to Eugene Purir of Breakthrough News. Eugene, thank you so much for joining us. This talking about shutdowns or the possibility of shutdowns has almost become an annual thing here for us. And it's a bit confusing for many people, I suppose. Many parts of the world, governments, prison budgets, they're voted on. And disagreements are dealt with in parliament, et cetera. So could you maybe first for our viewers take us through why this question of a shutdown keeps coming up almost every year at this point? Yes, the US government shutdown process is very strange. It's essentially a neoliberal production. This is actually something that started in the Reagan administration when one of the legal officials put an opinion out that if there's a disagreement over how to fund the government, that the government cannot continue its operations that are considered quote-unquote nonessential, which has always debated what that was. So prior to 1980, the US government would never shut down in this way. But since then, it's become a relatively frequent occurrence. And it's become even more frequent recently because it becomes a way the government shutdowns, the debt ceilings, all these artificially created deadlines become a way for either of the two parties, but oftentimes the Republican Party to use their minority status as, you know, or to use the status of these shutdowns as leverage to get things that they wouldn't normally be able to get because they have minority support inside of the US Congress. And so almost as a matter of course, the two parties always say they don't want these things to happen, but they always allow them to happen because here at the, you know, 11th hour type situation, it makes it easier to push through things that could never get majority support in Congress otherwise, but it really is due to a strange legal quirk from the neoliberal era. And the number one role it plays, and that's why I'm mentioning neoliberalism, is basically to make it easy to make big cuts to the budget that are so unpopular that they would never happen otherwise. So basically it's a way of reducing government, which is really the neoliberal dream continues to be so. But in this specific case, could you tell us maybe what really is the contest here because we also hear about the Senate and the House of Representatives processing two different kinds of bills. So what really is the contention about over here? So there's basically two levels of contention, but the main level of contention is within the Republican Party inside the House of Representatives. In the Senate, they are relatively united over passing a bill that could fund the government, but they're also relatively united around passing a bill called a continuing resolution to give them more time to work it out between the Senate and the House. So in the US basically in situations like this, the Senate and the House pass a budget, then they conference with one another and then they come up with a uniform thing that ends up becoming the budget. So the Senate is pretty much on one page. They've crafted their budget based on the agreement between President Biden and the Republicans in Congress around the debt ceiling. But inside of the House of Representatives, the most far-right members of the Republican caucus have decided that they want to use this as an opportunity to make deep, deep cuts in spending that would never ever be able to pass in a normal circumstance. And so they're dressing it up in procedural means, and Matt Gaetz and some of these other individuals are saying that they just want to have what they call a regular order, that they think the process is wrong. But it's not really about the process. What it's about is they know that their minority position to make deep cuts to funding for Social Security, which is retirement benefits for people, funding for Medicaid, which is the healthcare program for low-income individuals, funding for food, funding for housing, all these different things that they know they can never get support. They're hoping if they shut the government down that they'll then be able to use that as leverage because Democrats may get desperate as well as other Republicans as different services start to shut down over the next month when they run out of money. So this is really about a fight inside of the Republican Party about whether to push the most extreme agenda of cutting government spending for working-class people to the bone or whether or not to stick to the deal that they made or something close to the deal that they made with President Biden. There's some elements of border security that are also involved. They want more money, so-called border security. They want more money, the right-wing Republicans for that. But it really comes down to the spending issues, I think, above and beyond anything. And it comes down to the internal fight between sort of the far right and the ultra-right in the Republican Party. Right. In this context, of course, I also wanted to ask you about what really is the impact of this kind of a shutdown because beyond the halls of Congress, it also affects people who are working for the government, people who are being paid by the government. So where does this impact really come when you talk about a shutdown? So it depends on how long it lasts, but there are a couple million federal workers that are at risk of losing significant income if it lasts over maybe a week or so. Really, in shutdowns that last a few days, very little things happen. But once you start to get to a couple weeks, federal workers start losing paychecks and many more services start to shut down. So some things will shut down right away, like national parks and so on and so forth that are considered non-essential. There's also what they call low-risk food inspections. So they actually start shutting down some food inspections. But there are other things like, say, social security payments, SNAP, which is a low-income program for working-class people who need help buying food. Those things for working-class people who need help buying food. Those things can usually run for a month or so. Shutdowns that have lasted longer than about 30, 35 days. That's really when the bite starts to set in and the money they've saved and the different programs don't work. So it really is a matter of how long it lasts. But if it starts to last two weeks, three weeks, you're going to have millions of federal workers who have lost two paychecks and could be at risk of being evicted from their homes. You'll have many millions, tens of millions of low-income poor people unable to buy food, unable to access health care, unable to access other critical goods and services. So usually what happens is they try to wrap it up before that takes place. So how big of the impact I think will depend on how long it is, but it could be very, very significant. Tens of millions of people could struggle to eat, provide health care and make their basic expenses week to week. This is, I think, yet another example of what we often talked about, a particular kind of dysfunction that is at one level between two parties, but also I think is a larger product of how over the decades for that matter, like you were talking about the neoliberal state, but over the decades it's basically on the one hand made government itself a bad thing in many ways and on the other hand also pushed both parties towards this philosophy of trying to cut spending as much as possible, because even the Democrats often keep talking about the same thing, you know, we need to spend less, et cetera, et cetera, and completely ignoring the state of millions of people, like you said. So what has kind of been the pushback on this, because is there a different kind of thinking or a set of demands on some of these issues? I think that what we see is that, you know, many social movements and trade unions and others have pointed out that all of these procedural hurdles need to just be stopped. I mean, almost all of them basically you could change the rules in some ways. I mean, this one is a little difficult with the shutdown because there is sort of a legal opinion, but of course the Biden administration could just offer another legal opinion if they so chose about what was possible, things like the filibuster, things like the debt ceiling. I mean, many of these, you know, they call them back stops in Congress and they're trying to create these crises that force these negotiations that end up cutting the budget. Almost all these things are made up. None of them are in the Constitution. None of them are written in laws. All of them can be changed. So that's one of the big demands that's coming from people's movements in the United States is that why do we even have these hurdles when they can easily be changed? And why is it that Democrats like President Biden are unwilling to use their own power to change them to put them in a situation where you wouldn't have this type of thing and you wouldn't be able to blackmail the government, even if they're under individuals are. But because of the fact that this is part of the way the both major parties keep the drift of the government moving in a sort of center right direction, they actually have quite a bit of desire to keep it the way it is because it makes sure that the demands of people's movements are harder to be heard in the halls of Congress and in the halls of the White House because they'll just say, oh, well, we can't do it, you know, because of this, because of that. So that's becoming a bigger rallying cry. I suspect it'll be a big part of the presidential campaign in 2024 of people trying to put pressure on Biden to make a big change and how he approaches some of these procedural issues. Thank you so much, Eugene. You mentioned the campaign in 2024. I think a lot of interesting times coming up for the country as a whole, especially with this kind of systemic dysfunction we often keep talking about. Thank you so much for talking to us. Thank you. A report by UN Refugee Agency official says that over 2,500 migrants have died or gone missing while trying to get to Europe from Africa this year. Now, on this show, we've often talked about what is called the Mediterranean refugee crisis, which is a suffering tens of thousands go through as they try to escape conflict and other crises only to be treated in an extremely brutal way by European countries. Now, these very same European countries are discussing to figure out a way to share the load of refugees and each country seems determined to throw the tasks to someone else. What is clear is that there is no analysis or concern of the needs of refugees or the reasons they're forced to leave. We go to Anish for details. Anish, thank you so much for joining us. So first of all, let's take a look at the report by the UN official, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees. There are quite alarming reports in terms of what is happening in the Mediterranean right now. It's an issue we've talked about often on this show, but what are the latest updates? Well, the figures it's been quite alarming. What we're looking at is a very steep jump in deaths in the Mediterranean. We have spoken about this earlier as well, where like every year, thousands are pretty much, you know, dying on in the Mediterranean. And this is just documented fatalities we are looking at and we do not know how many of these undocumented migrants or refugees have gone missing. And a lot of these figures do not necessarily include those who went missing or, you know, when the boats capsized. So this sort of perilous journey is being carried out almost annually right now. We're looking at about 250,000 people who have attempted to cross into Europe through the Mediterranean. And this we're looking at, you know, either very updated cruise ships that may be used for scrap, or in some cases it's just, you know, pieces of wood and rubber being put together, you know, carrying dozens of people, which may just capsize as a slightest of a storm. And that clearly shows the dangers that, you know, the current EU immigration policy and refugee policy has. And we need to also remember like most of these capsizing areas that are documented are primarily reported because they are victims of the send the boats back policies that many of the countries in not just Europe, but also Western Europe are implementing these days, which actually cause, you know, accidents that create this kind of tragedy almost annually right now. In each context, of course, I think two or three important aspects to consider. One is the fact that one strategy of the European countries has to be, it has to be into signed deals with various countries that, you know, that have coastal or Arab boarding points basically. We saw Tunisia, we saw Egypt for instance where similar discussions have taken place. We of course know that similar incidents took place in Libya. That also is a big part of the problem because these countries are of the very, you know, very harsh to say the least policy against refugees. Yeah, definitely. Like one of the most open policies that used to exist in North Africa was basically under Gaddafi's Libya and post NATO, and this is what we have seen like post NATO invasion, how this entire crisis actually just multiplied through this sort of project proportions. But this attempt to, you know, sign deals with North African countries is pretty much trying to do away with their responsibility to refugees that are coming, you know, to their borders. Many of the times, you know, authorities in North Africa or, you know, West Asia may not be able to contain the number of refugees who go through irregular routes and channels and, you know, may even be victims of trafficking and the fact that the European Union does not want to, you know, consider these cases which are, which number in thousands at this point in time is something that is quite alarming and that clearly shows their disregard for human rights no matter how many, how much these countries talk about human rights elsewhere. We need to also consider the fact that these countries do not really want, are going through a situation where they are facing elections and they want to, and they are facing pressures from the right wing who are using migrants and refugees as a plan to further their political mileage and usually see liberal, or seemingly liberal central government taking that very, you know, right word shift when it comes to border policy. Recently we have seen Germany trying to implement a certain kind of border policy that did not really exist before, but pretty much is something that they are putting in place in the coming months with election seasons coming in and that is something similarly happening elsewhere. Places with right wing governments, it's a very different case altogether where they have clearly and adamantly put in place, you know, very cruel, that is putting it finally, very cruel border policies that essentially, you know, includes attacking refugee boats and refugee caramans and that creates more problems than actually solving any issues at the current moment. Right, Anish, of course, we've also seen that in the recent times we've had European governments actually discuss or are conducting discussions to basically kind of try to figure out how to sort of share the burden as they call it of refugees, you know, various, you mentioned Germany, of course, Italy, another key player in these discussions. So could you also take us through what some of these discussions are? Well, the current discussions, obviously, revolve around more or less how to, as you point out, share the burden, but the sharing the burden is something that is going to be very dicey because we already have several right wing governments in Eastern Europe who are not at all ready to accept any refugees whatsoever and that we have already seen in Poland earlier this afternoon just threatening to veto any kind of policy that would require member nations to, you know, accept a certain number of refugees or a certain number of quota and that is something that shows a situation that Europe is in right now. Obviously, they have failed completely and miserably to stop the deluge of such refugees and irregular immigrations and that primarily has to do with the fact that many of these countries are themselves involved in wars and conflicts that they have no stakes in but, you know, it's pretty much an extension of their imperialist past and that is something that they do not want to consider. They do not want to consider, you know, humane conditions, inhumane conditions that most of these refugees have to put up with and obviously Southern European nations are talking about, you know, putting up this mask of decency by talking about sharing the burden but many of these countries themselves have, you know, conducted very, you know, very terrible acts of violence against refugees. As government policy, we are not even talking about attacks on refugee camps, you know, attacks on refugees and migrants and people of color in these countries like from the government policy but as government policies they have included attack on refugees and that is essentially just takes away any kind of, you know, moral mileage they might have in these discussions and obviously, you know, countries like Poland, countries like Hungary who have very clear policies about not, you know, inducting any kind of refugees or any migrants, undocumented migrants into their territory is going to pretty much stall these discussions, you know, no matter how much the German or the Italian or the French counter must talk about how they are very close to such a team but this is definitely going to be, you know, a big stumbling block in the, in any kind of, you know, such migrant sharing that they will talk about. Rananish, so what it basically does seem or look like is that after wreaking havoc in various ways in various parts of the world European countries now trying to say that, you know, on the one hand trying to talk, brand all of this is an issue of illegal, of trafficking, of illegal migration, etc. and trying to push back people who are fleeing from the crisis they seems to have caused themselves. Exactly. It is something that they just, I mean obviously they do not want to talk about it, they do not want to address it but this is pretty much the situation that they are in right now. Thank you so much Anish for talking to us Anishu, we'll unfortunately have to keep tracking continuously and so we'll come back to you soon on this. That's all we have time for in this episode of Daily Deep Brief, we'll be back tomorrow with another episode, until then do visit our website peoplesdispatch.org follow us on all the social media platforms and if you're watching this on YouTube we'll see you next time.