The House GOP Busy Building its Pyrrhic Bonfire
The House debt ceiling legislation ignores the real policy debate that is needed
Not surprisingly, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy already is cutting deals on the debt ceiling legislation he promised would not be amended. Reportedly, McCarthy has had to restore the proposed elimination of biofuel tax credits. These tax breaks were included in the Democratic climate and energy bill that passed Congress last year - the bill that that passed without a single Republican vote. At least some Midwestern Republicans told McCarthy they would oppose the bill if the Democratic tax breaks weren’t included in the GOP debt ceiling legislation. Yet one more example of how irony is lost on the GOP.
Ultimately, it seems likely the Republicans will get some bill through that will be dressed up as a major deficit-cutting initiative but, in fact, would have at best a minimal impact on the long-term federal deficit. And even that minimal impact won’t be realized. Whatever the House is able to pass will be DOA in the Senate.
What the Republican effort will do is become the very definition of Pyrrhic victories. The grandstanding may please some of the GOP base, but it will be at the cost of creating effective fodder for devastating campaign ads in 2024. What the Republicans did in 2010 to falsely portray Obamacare’s Medicare provisions as “death panels” will be repaid a thousand times over next year as Democratic ad whizzes hammer away at the smorgasbord of proposed Republican cuts that take a benefit away from one constituency or another. Put those attack ads in the mix with the Republicans’ floundering on abortion and cultural issues and the Trump-era string of disappointing election cycles seems likely to continue for the GOP.
More importantly - after all, policymakers are elected to craft policies that make the U.S. a better place - is that Republicans are sacrificing their role as the loyal and effective opposition to placate the most extreme members of the caucus. The country needs a thoughtful and rational debate over spending and future deficits. Policymakers need to make hard decisions, set spending priorities and craft tax reforms that restore meaning to the concept of “fair share.” The debt ceiling is not the vehicle for those discussions. Holding it hostage only runs the risk of exacerbating the federal budget crisis.
Republicans know that. McCarthy knows that. Still, the GOP majority would rather take their cues from the likes of Matt Gaetz and Majorie Taylor Greene than look to the most effective fiscal conservatives of the past, starting with former Republican Rep. John Kasich, the last chair of the House Budget Committee to actually craft and pass a balanced federal budget. Sad.
Precise and concise analysis. Affirms what Atlantic says today about a likely blowout for Biden in 2024. GOP might do better if by some miracle they dump Trump, but his replacement likely will be Trumpish and also unelectable. GOP has become almost like the insurrectionist party it was formed to defeat in the late1850s.
Tom, as usual, your article hits the proverbial nail on the head. What a different country this would be today had John Kasich been the 2016 Republican nominee and had won the presidency. But, alas, we are stuck with a Republican Party that has gone so far off track that historians will be writing about and debating about this era for decades to come. In my view the problems with the GOP began with George Bush's tax cutting approach when he squeaked by (thanks to an already partisan Supreme Court) to victory in 2000. A lot of people forget that we were actually running surpluses in the later years of the Clinton administration. I'm convinced we'd have continued to experience balanced budgets for much of the following decade had Bush's tax cuts not been enacted.