The Progressive Populist Today Blog: 2023-01-15

Sunday, January 15, 2023

Editorial: Clown Car’s In Gear

We can’t expect much out of a Congress where Marjorie Taylor Greene, Matt Gaetz and Lauren Boebert are calling the shots. But that’s what we have in the US House in the 118th Congress. The good news is they won’t get much done.

Kevin McCarthy wanted to be House Speaker in the worst way. It took 15 ballots over four days, but he finally achieved his goal, albeit with an asterisk. Republicans hold a 222-212 majority in the House, with one vacancy after the death of Rep. Donald McEachin (D-Va.) on Nov. 28.

McCarthy needed 218 for a majority, but 20 far-right “Freedom Caucus” Republicans balked at voting for him. After 11 ballots on Tuesday and Wednesday, Jan. 3-4, showed McCarthy trailing Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries, who got votes of all 212 Democrats, McCarthy finally conceded to right-wing demands and outscored Jeffries on Thursday, Jan. 5, but he was short of the majority of members voting, as six insurrectionist Republicans remained obstinate.

Among the far-right demands McCarthy agreed to was a rule change to allow any member of Congress to force a vote on ousting the speaker. He also agreed to place more Freedom Caucus members on the House Rules Committee, which decides which legislation moves to the floor and what amendments can be attached to bills. McCarthy said he would allow floor votes to institute term limits on members and hold the debt ceiling hostage to force budget cuts.

But even after McCarthy surrendered to virtually all the “Freedom Caucus” demands, math tripped up the attempted finale on the 14th vote. Gaetz waited until after the initial round of alphabetical voting. When Gaetz finally voted “present,” instead of voting for McCarthy, the consensus Republican candidate had 216 votes, but two insurrectionists voted for Andy Biggs (Ariz.) and two voted for Jim Jordan (Ohio), which left McCarthy with only half of 432 votes cast.

McCarthy and some of his allies confronted Gaetz, and Mike Rogers (Ala.) had to be physically restrained, but one of McCarthy’s allies, Patrick T. McHenry (N.C.) moved to adjourn until the following Monday, to give them time to nail down Gaetz and the five other holdouts. But during the voting, Gaetz and Boebert indicated they finally had decided to play along, so Republican leaders killed the motion to adjourn and proceeded with the 15th and final roll call vote, in which McCarthy again got 216 votes but the six holdouts simply voted present, so McCarthy got a majority of the 428 votes cast.

McCarthy also accepted rules that include a call for significant cuts in the federal government budget, and raise the vote threshold needed to approve tax increases to a three-fifths supermajority.

The rules allow new committees to explore US competitiveness with China, examine what Republicans call “weaponization” of federal law enforcement agencies in politically charged investigations and assess the federal government’s handling of the COVID pandemic.

The package also allows lawmakers to use spending bills to defund specific programs and fire federal officials or reduce their pay. It also imposes term limits of eight years for the eight board members of the Office of Congressional Ethics (OCE), an independent body established in 2008 that investigates complaints about sitting members of Congress. It also requires the OCE board to appoint staff within 30 days and that hiring and compensation of staff members must be approved by at least four board members. Democrats and public-interest groups protested that the changes would hobble the way the OCE functions.

The rules package also supported restrictions on presidential authority to draw down the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. Republicans apparently resent that the reserve was used to drive down oil prices in the past year, which coincidentally resulted in a drop in gasoline prices before the midterm elections. That foiled the plans of Russian and Saudi leaders to help Republican capitalize on high gas prices to capture both chambers of Congress.

The rules were passed 220-213 Jan. 9 with only one Republican voting no. So much for “moderate” Republicans.

The rules also allow lawmakers at least 72 hours to review legislation before it goes to the floor for a House vote, but that didn’t stop a bill coming before the House on the heels of the rules passage Jan. 9 that would rescind $80 billion of IRS funding in last year’s budget, which Democrats had added to allow more audits of wealthy tax cheats, as well as improve service to taxpayers and replace retiring IRS staff. The bill passed 221-210.

Republicans appear to be oblivious to the fact that any such bills must also pass the Democratic-majority Senate and be signed by President Biden. Republicans still are determined to force the budget cuts, including major cuts to Social Security and Medicare, as a condition for increasing the debt ceiling later this year.

Trumpist Freedom Caucus members are neither conservative nor populists.They are anarchists. But the rest of the caucus are not much better. “No significant GOP faction can be described accurately as ‘moderate’ or ‘mainstream’ or even ‘conservative,’ although media outlets persist in using those familiar terms to frame them,” Joe Conason wrote after McCarthy finally was awarded the gavel. “They’re nearly all crazies now.”

Conservatives wouldn’t threaten to refuse to increase the national debt ceiling, putting the national debt in default to score a political point if Democrats don’t agree to major cuts ini Medicare, Social Security and other vital programs, but the Republican caucus appears determined to do. Populists don’t put themselves in the service of big corporations and plutocrats, as “GOP” has come to mean Greedy Oligarch Party, where high-dollar contributors get their calls returned and workers and consumers are on their own.

The 20 members of the Freedom Caucus who resisted McCarthy’s promotion were among the most vocal supporters of the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection, but remember that 147 House Republicans voted to reject Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 presidential election and most of the rest went along with Trump’s election denialism over the past two years.

The clown show will continue in the House with investigations of Hunter Biden, Dr. Anthony Fauci and federal law enforcement agencies who dared to investigate Trump. A special Judiciary subcommittee will investigate the special House committee that investigated the Jan. 6 insurrection.

Republicans plan to bring in Hunter Biden for a public grilling about his service on the board of Burisma Holdings, a Ukrainian gas company, while his dad was vice president. Senate Democrats should bring in Jared Kushner to answer questions about how his service as Donald Trump’s emissary to the Middle East may have benefited Kushner’s family businesses. After all, Trump’s son-in-law got a Qatari-financed investment fund to bail out the Kushners’ troubled property at 666 Fifth Ave. in New York City in 2018 and Kushner got $2 billion from a fund led by Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salman for a new investment firm Kushner formed six months after he left the White House. Trump’s tax returns also are of interest, of course.

“I find positively delicious the prospect of hauling Jared Kushner in front of the Senate for every time Hunter Biden is summoned to the Clown Show,” Charles P. Pierce wrote at Esquire.com Jan. 9. “I know it’s not exactly good government, but that ship sailed over the horizon last weekend. And tempering the unruly temperament of the House is actually what the Senate was originally designed to do.”

We agree. Voters decided Congress won’t get anything done in the next two years. We might as well get some entertainment. — JMC