HOW NOT TO PLAY THE GAME - UPDATED

Dysfunction in the 118th Congress isn’t a bug, it’s a feature.

It’s the point. It’s the goal.

Strap in, the Fakakte Circus is about to begin, and it’s going to be very real.

The New York Times puts it in a nutshell in the follow–up header to their main headline on their story:

“As the Republican leader has made concessions to the far right, he has effectively agreed to give them carte blanche to disrupt the workings of the House - and to hold him hostage to their demands.”

The deals that Kevin McCarthy’s made in his Long March to be voted Speaker of the House have made one thing abundantly clear as they have become public:

The citizenry of the United States should brace for the likelihood of a Congress in perpetual disarray for the next two years.

Here, from what has been released regarding rules changes for the 118th Congress is the point of the effort (I have bolded the important points):

Section 2. Changes to the Standing Rules.

Initiatives to Reduce Spending and Improve Accountability.

Subsection (a)(1) replaces current “pay-as-you-go” requirements with “cut-as-you-go” requirements. The provision prohibits consideration of a bill, joint resolution, conference report, or amendment that has the net effect of increasing mandatory spending within a five-year or ten-year budget window. This provision continues the current practice of counting multiple measures considered pursuant to a special order of business which directs the Clerk to engross the measures together after passage for purposes of compliance with the rule and provides a mechanism for addressing “emergency” designations.

Subsection (a)(2) strikes the “Gephardt rule” that provides for the automatic engrossment and transmittal to the Senate of a joint resolution changing the public debt limit, upon the adoption by the House of a concurrent resolution on the budget resolution, thereby avoiding a separate vote in the House on the public debt-limit legislation.

Subsection (a)(3) restores a point of order against net increase in budget authority for amendments to general appropriations bills.

Subsection (a)(4) restores a point of order against budget reconciliation directives that increase net direct spending.

Increased Threshold for Tax Rate Increases. Subsection (b) restores a requirement for a three-fifths supermajority vote on tax rate increases.

The House Sedition Caucus (this is what I will be calling the House “Freedom” Caucus from here on out) is to be given approval power over plum committee assignments, including their being given a third of the members on the influential Rules Committee, which controls what legislation reaches the floor and in what form.

Spending bills would have to be considered under so-called “open rules,” which allow any member to force a vote on an unlimited number of changes that could gut or scuttle the legislation altogether.

With the Seditionists in control and having the power to derail spending bills or call for the speaker’s removal at any moment, the House will be dysfunctional and paralyzed from the start. McCarthy will have no power at all to negotiate with House Democrats, the Senate or the White House on any issue since any agreement he made that did not meet the approval of the House Sedition Caucus would result in at least one of their members calling a motion to vacate the chair.

McCarthy has claimed this will not harm him, since the rule has applied to all other speakers before Pelosi in her second Speakership, “and I am not afraid of this.” Ha! Quiverin’ Qevin is afraid of EVERYTHING. Anything that would harm his continuing hostile occupation of the Speaker’s Office is something he is afraid of. The man is a spineless coward with no convictions, no integrity.

This rule may have applied to all Speakers before, but that was back when sanity prevailed in the House of Representatives, and the House Sedition Caucus had not infiltrated the body. These scum can be expected to do ANYTHING that harms the operation of government, since destroying the constitutional democratic republic so it can be replaced by a fascist theocratic dictatorship is their goal.

Proving that the song is true, that “everything old is new again,” the rules changes above show that the Republicans are declaring war in the cause of....

(Drumroll)...

FISCAL CONSERVATISM!

With the power granted in McCarthy’s Great Surrender, the born-again “fiscal hawks” have announced that they intend what the NYT says will “force the White House to agree to massive spending cuts, threatening a return to the political brinkmanship that once nearly crippled the economy and almost plunged the U.S. government into default.”

Of course this is not new. The Far Right is nothing if not unoriginal. Being fiscally conservative when there is a Democratic administration is Standard Right Wing Policy. One merely needs to recall the kamikaze politics of Ted Cruz when he came over from the Senate to become the leader of the House Tea Party Caucus, the previous iteration of the House Sedition Caucus with his pointless government shutdowns.

Donald Trump was never been about frugality, debt reduction, or fiscal conservatism, except in the most bullshit way. The fiscally-conservative conservatives’ “favorite president” added more to the national debt in four years than Barack Obama and George W. Bush did in their two terms, even including Little Georgie’s Invasion of Poland, er, I mean Iraq. Even conservative analysts have been forced to admit Trump added $7.8 trillion to the national debt in ten-year budget deficits.

Since 2016, the Republicans have been engaged in Kultur Kampf rather than promoting fiscal discipline and pretending they care about spending and deficits.

Here’s a list of the “fiscally conservative” steps the Trump Party undertook between 2016-2020:

Pandemic-relief legislation: $3.9 trillion. (Which was done under protest and forced by Democrats)

The 2017 tax cuts: $2 trillion. ,

Legislation raising the discretionary spending caps: $1.6 trillion. (Again under protest and done with a majority of Democratic votes)

Disaster aid and other discretionary spending: $493 billion. (Mostly too little for relief of Puerto Rico after the hurricanes)

Repeal of Affordable Care Act-related taxes: $299 billion.

Other small policies: $201 billion.

But remember: Democrats are the Big Spenders who are always Out Of Control.

For Trump’s four years, Republicans didn’t give a shit about fiscal responsibility - it was all what Dear Leader wanted, coupled with things Democrats were able to convince Dear Leader he should want if he wanted a shot at re-election.

But now - fiscal sanity is back, baby! You better believe it!

As the NYT notes, McCarthy’s surrenders to the Sedition Caucus “would make the practical business of running the House next to impossible. It could be left unable to do basic things like fund the government or finance the federal debt. For the dissidents, that was the point. For the country, it could lead to some grim consequences.”

As I pointed out in my last post, the first test of the Speaker McCarthy Era comes tonight when the House Republicans try to pass their rules package for the 118th Congress. After last week’s fiasco, they shouldn’t take anything for granted.

Importantly, while there is a 55-page rules package that has been made public, there is also a secret three-page addendum McCarthy hashed in the negotiations with the House Sedition Caucus.

This is where the Big Stuff is: three seats on the Rules Committee for the Seditionists; freezing spending at FY2022 levels; a debt-ceiling strategy; giving the Sedition Caucus the coveted committee assignments. It’s reported there is even more but what’s been discovered is certainly Bad Enough.

At this posting, only two Republicans have publicly signaled they may vote against the rules package: Tony Gonzales (Texas) and Nancy Mace (S.C.).

Among their reasons for opposition is the complaint that McCarthy gave up too much to conservatives to get the speakership (Wel, duhhh....).

Moderates feel like they need to stand up to GOP leadership’s catering to the House Sedition Caucus now or be steamrolled until 2024, with negative outcomes for their re-election campaigns. With an announced goal of slashing social programs by at least $100 billion, the 18 “moderates” who won their seats in districts Biden won in 2020 and will likely win again in 2024, will have to vote for these cuts knowing the legislation will become toilet paper substitute in the Senate.

Representative David Valadao, Republican of California and a McCarthy ally, is quoted in the Times that more moderate members of the conference were growing concerned that the deals being cut would give too much leverage to the far right. “Obviously we’re concerned about it,” he said, adding, “I’m not thrilled with the direction it’s going.”

Yes, it’s true. Samuel Johnson was right: “Depend upon it, sir, when a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully.” (Valadao has a flashing neon target on his back for 2024)

Perhaps all this can convince four more “moderates” to get their minds concentrated, so that all six can join the 212 Democrats in voting against “moving the previous question,” thus forcing individual votes on each proposed rules change.

Expecting “moderate” Republicans to be other than useless decoration is usually a fool’s errand. But as they say, hope springs infernal...

McCarthy’s argument is that the rules package needs to pass so Congress can begin working. Without it, committees can’t get organized and thousands of committee staffers could miss a paycheck.

If the moderates cave in to this argument they need to support their staffers, then they will prove themselves even more worthless than Susan Collins.

This will be a tightrope walk. It’s going to be a tightrope walk with everything in this Congress, since McCarthy and his crew only afford to lose four votes if they want to pass this package.

And yes, the Kultur Kampf is not forgotten:

The first bills the House will vote on are designed to tighten abortion restrictions. All three were put on the floor schedule without consultation from the Republican Conference. I’m sure it’s entirely coincidental that the annual March for Life is on January 20, the first since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.

The House will vote today on Representative Adrian Smith’s bill to rescind $80 billion in IRS funding approved as part of the Inflation Reduction Act, which the House Sedition Caucus turned into a battle to keep jackbooted IRS agents from kicking down your front door, when what it actually is, is funding so that when some citizen like me tries (as I have since June) to call the IRS and get some information on a tax matter, there will be enough agents available to answer the phones after the first five minutes the number becomes active at 0700 each morning. (I finally resorted to snail mail in August, to which they replied with a letter I received last Saturday, only five months after I sent the original query - and it didn’t answer the question). House Republicans vowed to make this – the Family and Small Business Taxpayer Protection Act – the first measure they would take up if they won the majority.

Yes. Republicans are dedicated to being sure that government works for the citizenry. Yes, indeed they are. That is, if you’re a citizen in the One Percent who contributes to their campaigns and enjoys playing Tax Avoidance.

As this trainwreck continues to roar down the track, knocking down buildings to either side, crushing vehicles, starting fires, and sending men, women and children fleeing, these Republicans are about to find out that it’s one thing to campaign against “wokeness” and promise endless investigations of the FBI and Hunter Biden’s laptop. It’s something entirely different to go after Social Security and Medicare.

George W. Bush and Trump both found out to their surprise that these programs are popular even among their voters.

Not so surprisingly, considering how “in the bag” the Sedition Caucus is to their admired leaders Putin and XI, Republicans are threatening deep cuts to the military budget. The remaining members of the Party of Fire and Fury, as represented by the Wall Street Journal editorial board - no “lib’rul squishes” they! - stated:

“The reality is that if defense is cut, what will go first is spending for operations and maintenance to sustain military readiness, as well as money for the weapons to deter China. If the GOP rebels honor their demand for ‘regular order,’ defense hawks may have more votes. But it’s worrisome that some Republicans are joining the progressive calls to shrink the military when the world grows more dangerous.”

Hey, WSJ morons: there aren’t any “progressives” calling to shrink the military in the face of Putin’s barbarism and Xi Jingping’s moves in the South China Sea. That’s all the House Sedition Caucus in action, supporting their two favorite government leaders.

The politics of all of this is, shall we say, deeply problematic.

The dirty secret of the GOP is that while an out-of-control reactionary minority of Republican officeholders are dedicated to all this, their voters don’t actually want to cut specific big-ticket federal programs.

In 2019, a Hill/HarrisX poll found: “Republican voters, who have traditionally been perceived as favoring reduced government spending, are not keen on cutting federal spending that supports specific areas like health care and disaster relief, according to a new poll.”

Yes, it’s true: Republicans get sick - especially when they refuse to get vaccinated - and believe the ER should be open. And when they crawl out of the wreckage of the double-wide there in Tornado Alley or the Hurricane Coast, they want those FEMA checks.

The failure to raise the debt ceiling will cause international markets to melt down, recession risks to rise exponentially, and 401ks to evaporate.

How many Republican voters depend on their 401ks to survive? And remember - they are the old ones, the ones who crawl naked over broken glass ten miles to get to the polls every election.

From the Department of Too Good Not To Steal: by a poster at The Bulwark:

“1995- GOP in House Control-- LET'S SHUTDOWN THE GOVERNMENT!

Result: GOP looks horrible and Clinton’s approval skyrockets; he cruises to re-election.

2013- GOP in House Control-- LET'S SHUTDOWN THE GOVERNMENT!

Result: US Credit Rating downgraded, GOP looks horrible, Obama approval increases and he cruises to re-election.

2018- GOP in House Control-- WE CAN'T EVEN PASS A SPENDING BILL TO KEEP GOVERNMENT OPEN! AND WE HAVE CONTROL OF BOTH CHAMBERS AND THE WHITE HOUSE!

Result: Republicans look incompetent, Dems win both chambers and Trump loses in the next election.

2023- GOP in House Control-- "LET'S SHUTDOWN THE GOVERNMENT!

Result: What's the definition of insanity again?”

From the Department of Yes I Was Right All Along:

The estimable Will Saletan confirms what I said last week about the Establishment’s cave-in on campaign financing:

“Last Tuesday, the Congressional Leadership Fund, which calls itself “the independent super PAC endorsed by Kevin McCarthy”—that’s lawyer-speak for McCarthy’s super PAC—cut a deal to get right-wing support for his speakership bid. Under the deal, CLF agreed that it will no longer “spend in any open-seat primaries in safe Republican districts.” Nor will it “grant resources to other super PACs to do so.”

“That’s a big deal. CLF spent more than a quarter of a billion dollars in the 2022 elections. It can still support Republican incumbents against right-wing challengers, and in swing districts, it can oppose troublemakers in Republican primaries. But in safe red districts where a Republican incumbent isn’t running, CLF will yield to extremist candidates and their funders.”

UPDATE:

Surprise surprise Republican House “moderates” are as reliable and as much use as Republican Senate “moderates.” McCarthy used the weekend to get Republicans to do what comes naturally to them: get in line.

The rules were passed on a 220-213 mostly party-line vote, with Texas Republican Rep. Tony Gonzales joining all the Democrats in voting against the measure.

GOP leaders lobbied Republicans who had expressed misgivings, like Rep. Nancy Mace of South Carolina, who got on board Monday after saying she was “on the fence” a day prior.

After Republican foreign policy hawks protested the prospect of spending cuts to defense as a result of McCarthy’s dealmaking with the hardliners, McCarthy’s allies took to the airwaves to try to clarify what is and isn’t in the rules package, particularly related to defense spending.

GOP leaders are hoping to quickly push past the rules and onto their legislative agenda, with a vote slated for Monday evening after the rules on a bill to roll back $80 billion funding to staff up the Internal Revenue Service that was included in the Inflation Reduction Act, a massive social spending bill passed by Democrats in the last Congress. This will go nowhere in the Senate, the first of many House Republican empty gestures - sound and fury spoken by idiots, signifyng nothing. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office has already released a report staing that House Republicans' IRS legislation would increase the budget deficit by $114 billion over ten years.

McCarthy still would not say when he would release details of the secret side-deals he cut to become speaker that irked the moderates, such as tying a debt ceiling increase to spending cuts and ensuring Sedition Caucus members have more seats on key committees.

Importantly,. McCarthy signed off on a pledge that the Republican-led House would pair and debt ceiling increase to spending cuts and approve a budget that caps discretionary spending at fiscal 2022 levels. If implemented - which seems highly unlikely given who controls the Senate - this would roll back the fiscal 2023 spending increases for both defense and non-defense spending contained in last month’s $1.7 trillion omnibus package that the House Sedition Caucus and Fatso have been complaining about since. This means there will be a huge battle over the FY 2024 budget, and it will get hot and heavy this summer.

Tom Cole, chairman of the House Rules Committee, told CNN: “I’m willing to cut spending and we need to do that. I’m not willing to cut defense and that is half the discretionary budget.” Thus there is already intramural conflict within the Republican House caucus without even involving the Senate. McCarthy’s allies are already saying it’s domestic spending that will be targeted. Ron Klain tweeted: "They are going to try to cut Social Security and Medicare. It could not be clearer."

Where are we at? Paraphrasing Bette Davis: “Fasten your seatbelts. It’s going to be a bumpy year.”

You can support That’s Another Fine Mess by becoming a paid subscriber for only $7/month or $70/year, saving $14.

Comments are for paid subscribers.