Leader of the GOP House: I’m surprised he can even spell
leadership let alone know how to lead on any issue as noted in this AP story proves my
point about – Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) current GOP-run House speaker – with
this headline:
“Speaker McCarthy vows to
pass debt bill – with spending cap”
House Speaker Kevin McCarthy pledged on Monday to pass legislation to raise the nation’s
debt ceiling — but on the condition of capping future federal spending at 1%
— as he lashed out at President Joe Biden for refusing to engage in
budget-cutting negotiations to prevent a debt crisis.
In a high-profile speech at the New York Stock Exchange, McCarthy
marking his 100th day as speaker, said the nation’s debt load is a “ticking time bomb and that
President Biden is missing in action” as the deadline nears to raise the debt
limit, adding: “Since the president continues to hide, House Republicans will
take action. Defaulting on our debt is not an option. The longer President
Biden waits to be sensible to find an agreement, the more likely it becomes
that this administration will bumble into the first default in our nation’s
history.”
McCarthy’s Wall Street address comes as the Washington is heading toward a potential fiscal crisis over the need to raise the nation’s debt limit, now at $31 trillion, and avert a federal default.
The Treasury
Department has said it is taking extraordinary measures to continue paying its bills, but money will run short this
summer.
McCarthy faces his own challenges with his slim House majority
and less-than-strong grip on power, Thus far, he has been unable to rally his
troops around a budget-cutting proposal that he could offer the White House as
a starting point in negotiations. He vowed to pass a bill through the House
that would raise the nation’s debt limit into next year.
That puts the issue
squarely in the 2024 presidential election coupling it with a plan to roll back
federal spending to fiscal 2022 levels and cap future spending at no more than
1% a year over the next decade.
Republicans also want to
attach policy priorities, including imposing work requirements to recipients of
government aid that would result in cuts to benefit programs in the federal
safety net for poorer Americans.
House Republicans want to tack on H.R. 1, an expansive energy bill that
would favor oil, gas and coal production — and ease permitting
regulations — undoing many of Biden’s climate change-fighting initiatives.
White House Deputy Press Secretary Andrew Bates said ahead of McCarthy’s address: “A speech isn’t a plan.”
He then dismissed McCarthy’s overture and re-upping pressure on the
Republican leader to approve a debt ceiling increase with no strings attached,
adding: “There is one responsible solution to the debt limit: addressing it
promptly, without brinksmanship or hostage taking.”
Once a routine matter, the
need for Congress to pass legislation raising the nation’s debt limit to
continue paying already accrued bills has increasingly become a political
weapon wielded particularly by Republicans as leverage for their policy
priorities.
McCarthy is working furiously to unite the “five families” —
the various caucuses including the Freedom Caucus, Republican Study Committee,
and others within the House Republican majority — around a plan that could be
presented to Biden to kick start negotiations.
FYI: Federal spending
skyrocketed during the COVID-19 crisis, rising to $7.4 trillion in 2021, before
sliding back to $6.2 trillion in fiscal 2022, according to Treasury Department
data.
The nation’s debt load has
also climbed steadily, doubling during the George W. Bush administration with
the 9/11-era wars overseas and spiking again during the Obama administration as
spending rose and tax revenue plummeted during the Great Recession. The nation
runs more than $1 trillion in annual deficits, and the last time the federal
budget balanced was 2001.
McCarthy noted that President Reagan similarly warned of government spending saying the cuts that the House Republicans want to make are not “draconian,” as he vowed not to touch the Medicare and Social Security programs oddly enough that some other Republicans want to cut – a move that has drawn fierce blowback from Democrats.
The White House and Democrats in Congress
have been unwilling to engage in talks with the Republicans, saying Congress
must simply raise the debt limit without conditions and yet have not offered a
plan – just rabid soundbites for their base’s consumption.
Related on part from the NY TIMES editorial board: “It’s been obvious for months that Republicans in the House of Representatives intend to lead the country toward a calamitous debt ceiling crisis in order to get their way on spending. Only in the last few weeks, however, has it become clear just how truly chaotic that process will be. Republicans, it turns out, don’t even know what they want in exchange for dropping their threat to cause a default, beyond a fuzzy shared goal of cutting federal spending. Even if President Biden and the Democrats were inclined to negotiate with them to lift the debt ceiling — which would be a serious mistake — it’s not clear who their negotiating partners would be. The House has become so factionalized that its leaders cannot speak in one voice, and Speaker McCarthy may not be able to assemble a majority to lift the debt ceiling at all. In the end, the best solution is to eliminate the debt ceiling charade once and for all. There are bills in Congress to do so, though few Republicans would support them. And there was a strong argument during the Obama years to test the constitutionality of the ceiling in court, since it appears to violate the 14th Amendment, a tactic still worth trying. Mr. Biden, however, has shown no interest in pursuing that path, and seems to be hoping that this year, Republicans will finally learn that the debt ceiling is not a tool for leverage, because the cost for using it is too high. The country can only brace itself and hope he’s right.”
Then his sad part from McCarthy from U.S. News & World Report explaining and pledging that Republicans
would not allow the country to default on its debt, McCarthy said in part: “In the coming weeks, the House will vote on
a bill to lift the debt ceiling into the next year, save taxpayers trillions of
dollars, make us less dependent upon China, curve our high inflation, all
without touching Social Security and Medicare. The bill will enable the country
to meet its financial obligations until 2024.” (His specifics remain unclear).
McCarthy also used the opportunity to also again criticize President
Biden for refusing to negotiate on the debt ceiling, adding that he hasn’t
heard from the White House since his first meeting with the president over the
issue, saying: “Make no mistake: The
longer President Biden waits to be sensible, to find agreement, the more likely
it becomes that his administration will bumble into the first default in our
nation’s history. A no-strings attached debt limit increase will not pass.”
Rep. Patrick McHenry (R-NC), Chairman of the House Financial
Services Committee said: “I don’t see
how we get there, and this is a marked change from where I’ve been. I don’t
even see a path.”
My 2 Cents: Pretty simple based on the fact that Rep. McCarthy is no leader – not one bit… it took him 15 votes to get the GOP speaker’s chair – that is proof plenty of his own party resistance to him.
Plus, this old Marine
expression sums it pretty good: “He can’t even scratch his äss with a handful
of fishhooks.”
As stated above, he will
bend to the likes of Jordan, Taylor Greene, Boebert, Gaetz and a few others
because he needs their votes because the margin is so slim that he has keep
them happy in line out of fear of being ineffective – which BTW he is.
Thanks for stopping by.
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