A few hours before a possible “shutdown” (paralysis of the federal administration) in the United States, scientist Lauric Henneton still believes in the possibility of a compromise between Democrats and moderate Republicans on the budget.
In a few hours, the United States could experience a new “shutdown” situation, a paralysis of the federal administration caused by the inability between Democrats and Republicans in Congress to agree on the passage of the finance bill that extends the federal budget every year.
Several elements motivate the two parties, believes Lauric Henneton, lecturer at the University of Versailles Saint-Quentin: “I think that everyone wants to go there, more or less, to blame the other side. There’s a lot of theater in there. (… ) There is the re-election of all these representatives and that is actually the real problem. It’s a question of power within the House of Representatives. They do it. They couldn’t care less whether federal employees are paid or not and whether parks are paid [nationaux] whether open or not. It’s theater and inner strength.”
Particularly on the Republican side, “the right-wing faction within the Republican Party has nothing to lose here and is pursuing a kind of scorched earth policy and needs it.” Lauric Henneton even speaks of “completely exaggerated extremism.”
A compromise with the Democrats?
“The Republicans are very divided between a very small, very radical faction that is pushing the traditional Republican position, the fiscal orthodoxy, to a level that is no longer uncompromising. So there are a number of Republicans who are a little caught in the middle.” “Do we fundamentally have to compromise with the Democrats?” he specifies. For these Republican elected officials, the risk is that someone will compromise and “appear weak, like traitors, fictitious Republicans.”
It will be necessary to find an agreement in any case, “as long as there is no 49.3 in the USA”: “At some point someone, among the Republicans a priori, will have to make concessions.”
“There comes a time when someone somewhere has to blink. It’s like the final scene of ‘The Good, the Bad and the Ugly.'” [film de Sergio Leone sorti en 1966]where the first to blink loses.
Lauric Henneton
at franceinfo
“What should happen in the first place is that Republicans, who are more moderate than others, get along with the Democrats and maybe sacrifice Kevin McCarthy [président républicain de la Chambre des représentants] in the name of the general interest, because of course it can’t last forever.”