Chip Roy, a Republican congressman from Texas, and members of the conservative Freedom Caucus at a news conference in Washington on Sept. 12, 2023. J. SCOTT APPLEWHITE/AP

Washington is on the verge of another shutdown, a partial shutdown of the federal government. A crisis that is both incomprehensible and predictable given the balance of power within the Grand Old Party, where radicals have gained the upper hand.

Nerves on the march, bluster, procedural tricks: the US Congress is used to budgetary psychodrama these days and nights, the subtleties of which escape the public. Days and nights spent negotiating at the switch with the risk of shutting down the federal government for lack of funds.

In the Senate, as in the House of Representatives, the vast majority of elected representatives want to avoid a crisis for which they would be held accountable. Yet the United States is on the brink of another shutdown between now and 1 October. A crisis that is both predictable - given the internal balance of power among Republicans - and incomprehensible.

"It's a whole new concept, people who want to burn everything to the ground," Republican chairman Kevin McCarthy said through his teeth a few days ago. The Speaker of the House tried every trick in the book to break the deadlock. In the end, it was the Senate that put on the table on Tuesday a bipartisan text that would allow an extension of federal funding until mid-November, including new aid to Ukraine of about $6 billion (5.7 billion euros). But Mr McCarthy is not keeping his own troops in check: approval of this text in the House of Representatives is unlikely.

"It's a whole new concept, people who want to burn everything to the ground," Republican chairman Kevin McCarthy said through his teeth a few days ago. The Speaker of the House tried every trick in the book to break the deadlock. In the end, it was the Senate that put on the table on Tuesday a bipartisan text that would allow an extension of federal funding until mid-November, including new aid to Ukraine of about $6 billion (5.7 billion euros). But Mr McCarthy is not keeping his own troops in check: approval of this text in the House of Representatives is unlikely.

(Le Monde/RoZ)