Republicans who backed Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy’s debt deal with the Biden-Harris regime expect you to believe that they got huge wins in spending cuts in exchange for suspending the debt limit until 2025.
The Uniparty Swamp got what they wanted without having to give up, well, anything. It was all theater to set the stage for the House of Representatives to pass the comically named “Fiscal Responsibility Act” while maintaining the illusion of battle. In reality, only a few staunch conservatives and their radical leftist counterparts were opposed to it.
This will pass in the Senate on Friday and hit Joe Biden’s desk just in time to usher in 19 months of unfettered Big Government spending.
Here are the “victories” McCarthy got with the exceptional leverage he went in with at the start of negotiations:
- Debt Ceiling Suspended: This is, of course, not a victory at all as it will balloon the national debt by at least $4 trillion, but hey, at least we won’t suffer the dreaded default that Janet Yellen wielded deftly for fearmongering effect.
- Caps on Non-Defense Spending: They rolled back spending to fiscal 2022 levels and “only” allowed for 1% annual growth over the next six years. This is not a victory. Fiscal 2022 was way too high already. Rolling it back to those levels is like saying we’re going to cut back on heroine use to three times a day instead of four. As an unnamed White House official noted, “It’s flat. It’s a difference of about $1 billion. In a divided government, we’re not going to get the kinds of [nondefense discretionary] increases that we would hope to get.”
- Expand Work Requirements for Food Stamps: Of all the various aspects of Kabuki Theater the Uniparty Swamp engaged in, this is the most ridiculous. It drew plenty of headlines as corporate media and Democrats bemoaned this “attack” on the needy. But both they and the Republicans who generally ignored it hoped Americans would hear the words “expanded work requirements” and form an opinion without knowing the details. Those details: Raising the age of “able-bodied adults” who need to work in order to get food stamps from 49-years-old to 55-years-old. Yes, all the drama was over a six year bump.
- Rescind Leftover Covid-19 Funds: $28 billion will be rescinded. That’s good. But it’s a drop in the $4 trillion bucket, and it shouldn’t have needed to be part of the debt ceiling negotiations. In fact, why was this not covered already? Did McCarthy save it as a “card” to play for theater? Yep.
- 2% Cut to IRS Spending: Don’t get me started. This is a joke. We should have cut IRS spending down to 2%, not by 2%. In fact, we should have abolished the “service” altogether.
There’s more to it, but those are the highlights. Meanwhile, the Uniparty Swamp had fun on Wednesday pretending to fight each other.
And by “pretending” to fight, let’s briefly mention what everyone should already know. The votes were already set before floor debate. Nobody changed their mind today. Again, this is all part of theater, in case you’re one of the people watching the show.
McCarthy Caved and Forced RINOs to Cave With Him
The saddest part about all this is that McCarthy had the leverage to make real changes in Washington DC. There is no scenario in which corporate media and their puppet masters in the Democrat Party could have spun a default as completely McCarthy’s fault if no debt deal was done.
The economy would have seen major challenges, perhaps even massive ones. It likely would have hit the stock market hard and sent us into a deeper recession. This is why McCarthy could have pressed for far more than he got. The people generally blame the party in the White House when hard times come and the Biden-Harris regime knows this.
McCarthy had the leverage. He gave away the farm. He could have forced meaningful cuts.
Instead of going to the right, McCarthy decided to head to the murky middle knowing he would upset fiscal conservatives and much of the GOP base. He knew America First Republicans wouldn’t vote for it, so he went far closer to the center than he needed to so he could get Democrats to vote for it.
As Senator Mike Lee noted:
House Republicans concerned about the Biden-McCarthy deal had the votes to kill it—until 52 House Democrats rushed to the bill’s rescue and saved it. How exactly is this a Republican bill?
The only thing “Republican” about this bill is that it demonstrates the GOP is officially the RINO wing of the Uniparty Swamp. Those conservatives in the minority are essentially powerless.
This is a horrible deal for Americans. Unfortunately, we’ve grown accustomed to constant disappointment from Capitol Hill regardless of who is allegedly in control.
More Democrats voted in favor of the Fiscal Irresponsibility Act than Republicans. That should tell you all you need to know about Kevin McCarthy.