House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., speaks to reporters about debt ceiling negotiations at the U.S. Capitol on Tuesday.
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House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., speaks to reporters about debt ceiling negotiations at the U.S. Capitol on Tuesday.
Anna Moneymaker / Getty Images
At a time when political skepticism seems to be everyone’s direct response, it’s easy to overlook the role of lower-ranking lawmakers who helped avert the debt ceiling crisis.
Only don’t call them “moderate”.”
“Peaceful people?” tweeted Rep. Dusty Johnson, RS.D., one of the main negotiators of Debt ceiling agreement passed the House of Representatives overwhelming Wednesday night. He prefers the description: “pragmatic conservatives who really care about going to work.”
Johnsonwho looks more like Bill Gates Matt Gaetzrepresents approximately 75 GOP members as president of the “Republican Main Street Caucus.”
That’s one of the things these congressional Republicans often say Is called the mafioso-theme “Five Families.” Main Street Caucus, and a bunch of other coalitions in between, like “New Democratic Alliance” on the other side of the aisle, crucial in securing support for the deal.
There are a lot of well-founded complaints from both sides – left worried about increased work requirements that could harm the impoverished, worried about the environmental impact of increased energy licensing speed; right, continuing to shake their heads about what they see as out-of-control spending and debt, currently topping 30 trillion dollars.
But in the end, two-thirds of Republicans in the House and more than three-quarters of Democrats voted for the bill by a total of votes. 314-117.
The Senate still has to pass the bill, but if it does, as expected, it will be those who stay away from their party’s faction — the party with some of the most vocal, most attention-grabbing members — who who averts a possible disaster first. America never defaulted on its debt.
Perhaps call them the Silent Middle Majority.
Traders take their actions
President Biden boarded Marine One on the South Lawn of the White House on Wednesday ahead of a House vote on a bill to raise the debt ceiling and two-year spending cap.
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President Biden took office with the narrowest majority of any congressman and was not exactly a fan favorite of progressives.
Hot negative feelings towards him on the right have grown over the past two years, as conservatives incorrectly paint him as a disorderly puppet of the progressive left.
On the other hand, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy doesn’t really have power over his members. He took the majority – only four seats – and passed to become the speaker after 15 rounds of historic voting.
He had to make concessions to get the job he wanted for more than a decade, and he ended up empowering the most radical and belligerent in his party in the process.
The truth is that the state of political partisanship is worse or worse than at any other time in modern history.
That is backed up by data. Parties, especially Republicans, are much more homogeneous and ideologically aligned on almost everything from guns to abortion rights to gender identity.
There are far fewer districts in rotation today than there were 15 years ago—just a few dozen of the 435 could even be considered truly competitive, leaving lawmakers with little incentive to compromise.
None of that bodes well for the moment.
But that partisan narrative can also lead to excessive drama about extremes.
After all, Biden received the presidential nomination despite his more moderate record, and McCarthy received the support of a majority in his convention.
While McCarthy has barely been challenged as a legal spokesperson to this point, Biden has time and again demonstrated his ability to work with anyone sitting across from him. .
He did that in 2011 with Republican Senate leader Mitch McConnell on the debt ceiling. And while the GOP’s intransigence has only deepened, Biden has been able to implement many bipartisan pieces of legislation since taking office, including:
- $1 trillion infrastructure bills;
- The CHIPS Act, aimed at building more semiconductors in the United States;
- the bill provides health care and welfare services to millions of veterans injured by exposure to toxins such as Agent Orange in Vietnam and burning pits in Iraq and Afghanistan; And
- The $1.7 trillion federal government funding bill received 68 votes in the Senate and includes the Revised Electoral Vote Counting Act.
This week’s debt ceiling deal once again polishes Biden’s image as a trader that defies the odds.
The bill also does something politically important for both Biden and McCarthy: It raises the debt ceiling through 2025. In other words, it will eliminate the issue until after the presidential election.
With an already weak economy, persistent inflation and rising interest rates, that’s good news for Biden. He has a lot of other vulnerabilities to worry aboutand another debt ceiling battle right in the middle of a presidential campaign is the last thing he or his staff need.
The delayed rematch also means that McCarthy may not have to put up another hardline vote for his members for a year and a half. That was key for him, as he may have angered the far right to get this deal to the finish line.
Danger still lurks McCarthy
The right wing of the GOP has thwarted Republican speakers in the past, and to win the speaker spot, McCarthy had to make some major concessions to one of the Five Other Families: Thematic Freedom Caucus. conservative meaning.
First, McCarthy allowed the Freedom Caucus to approve certain members of the Rules Committee, which decides how bills should be voted on.
And, perhaps most importantly, the California congressman, who has never been loved by the most conservative of his party, agreed to lower the threshold for a knock-out vote to bring down the speaker to just one second. a member.
Republican Representatives Patrick McHenry of North Carolina (left) and Garret Graves of Louisiana, pictured at the Capitol on Wednesday, are key negotiators on behalf of House Speaker Kevin McCarthy.
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Republican Representatives Patrick McHenry of North Carolina (left) and Garret Graves of Louisiana, pictured at the Capitol on Wednesday, are key negotiators on behalf of House Speaker Kevin McCarthy.
Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images
Even as that loomed, in his first major deal with Democrats, McCarthy did not turn to the far right, but to the likes of Rep. Johnson and Garret Graves, R-La.
Graves is seen as the get-goer among Republicans. Before becoming a congressman, he was president of the Louisiana Coast Guard and Recovery Authority, where he played a key role in the fight for dollars back in the wake of the BP oil spill.
In his congressional leadership, Graves is chairman of the Elected Leadership Committee, which regularly meets with representatives of the “Five Families”.
So he is very familiar with all the important players.
But that hasn’t stopped some right-wing members from trying to kill off the bill, which they consider insufficiently conservative.
And they almost succeeded.
Chip Roy, a member of the Freedom Caucus in Texas, seems willing to go to the brink of default — or indeed, over that cliff — to force McCarthy to step in and demand more cuts.
“A reminder that in the Speaker’s negotiations to build a coalition, it was both clear that nothing could get through the Rules Committee without LEAST 7 votes of the GOP,” he said. he tweeted.
But like another Roy this week, who just needed one more vote to get what he wanted (see Roy, Kendall of heir), he was ultimately unable to convince Kentucky’s conservative Representative Thomas Massie to help him stop the bill from passing committee.
Freedom Caucus Chairman Representative Scott Perry, R-Pa. on PBS news now Tuesday night declined to say whether he would force a vote to oust McCarthy if his attempt to derail the debt ceiling vote failed.
“We’ll discuss it after this is done,” Perry said.
Now, it’s done. And overnight, the pragmatists won.
Of course, before McCarthy gets too comfortable, he should remember that, in the end, Michael Corleone Put out Stracci, Cuneo, Tattaglia and Barzini for control.
