Array
The new Republican majority in the U.S. House of Representatives had barely settled in when Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen lobbed a hand grenade into the GOP caucus bunker. She announced that the U.S. could default on its debt this week unless the government takes “extraordinary” steps and Congress raises the national debt limit. This urgent need for action is a serious challenge to the new Speaker Kevin McCarthy, and his renegade band of institutional anarchists in the GOP-controlled House.
The big question now is whether the House Republicans are ready to rumble with the Democrat in the White House and the Democratic majority in the U.S. Senate. Members of the House majority need to decide whether they’re skilled legislators or simply agitators. The early returns indicate that the caucus is not ready for primetime.
If the battle over the federal debt limit is anything like McCarthy’s battle for the Speakership, the economy and the nation are in grave danger. His 15-ballot struggle to become Speaker set the stage for the imminent fight over the debt limit. To secure the position, he made concessions to the far-right Freedom Caucus that will limit the Speaker’s power and his ability to strike a deal with Democrats to keep the federal government up and running. His concessions made it easier for those who oppose him to remove him as Speaker as well as to install several far-right members on key committees. The prospect of a vote to remove McCarthy as Speaker during a government shutdown crisis should keep him awake nights.
House assignments to members like Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) demonstrate the newfound power of the far right in the GOP House caucus. She received coveted appointments to two key committees, Oversight and Homeland Security and secured the position on the latter committee despite her endorsement of outlandish and dangerous conspiracy theories. It’s worth a reminder that she was stripped of her previous committee assignments when Democrats controlled the House for offensive claims, including suggesting that the 9/11 attack was a hoax and that Jewish space lasers caused wildfires in the American West.
