Mike Lawler said the temporary funding bill to stop a government shutdown was the “only responsible thing to do” and blasted Matt Gaetz’s push to remove Kevin McCarthy
New York Rep. Mike Lawler on Sunday warned that hard-line Republican colleague Matt Gaetz’s plan to call a vote on removing Speaker Kevin McCarthy would be “destructive to the country” and further delay conservatives’ work on long-term government funding bills.
“Nobody in our conference disagrees with the need to do single-subject spending bills. Nobody disagrees with the need to cut spending,” Lawler told ABC “This Week” co-anchor Jonathan Karl. “In fact, it’s one of the biggest reasons why I ran.”
Gaetz, in a separate interview on “This Week,” denounced a temporary funding bill passed by Congress on Saturday to avert a partial government shutdown, arguing that it didn’t do enough to change the culture of spending in Washington.
He said he would seek to remove McCarthy this week for backing the bill, which will fund the government through mid-November.
Lawler, a more moderate member of the GOP conference, defended the legislation as the “only responsible thing to do” to allow the party more time to finish individual spending proposals rather than the massive, all-in-one packages of past years.
“When you’re trying to break the system, when you’re trying to reform it, it takes time,” he said.
