Barely Speaker Kevin McCarthy has been in the job for less than three weeks, and already his raucous conference is causing him problems, already feeling the strains of being the majority and having to make big decisions and actually govern. Case in point: the very dangerous debt ceiling default with which they are flirting.
At a GOP leadership “private legislative retreat” this week, McCarthy led a panel on the debt ceiling “but didn’t offer much input,” a source told Bloomberg. Go figure. However, Rep. Patrick McHenry, the Financial Serviced Committee chair and one of McCarthy’s key negotiators in the speaker vote, did apparently have things to say about the debt ceiling. He was there on behalf of his real bosses (the banks). According to Bloomberg’s source he “warned fellow House Republican leaders to be reasonable and realistic as they demand federal spending cuts in exchange for raising the nation’s debt ceiling.”
At the meeting, according to the source, they “underscored” that they will not cut Social Security, Medicare, or Medicaid, and tried to distance themselves from the radical Republican Study Committee budget proposal released last year and the even more extreme plan from Sen. Rick Scott, which would sunset Social Security and Medicare—along with every other single law on the books—every five years.
Anyway, why does what McHenry is doing matter? Because McHenry is and always has been one of the top recipients of money from the banks and financial service companies he’s supposed to be regulating. Because what McHenry was doing was giving the very powerful financial service industry’s message directly to McCarthy.
RELATED: Barely Speaker Kevin McCarthy has no debt ceiling negotiating legs to stand on
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If you’ve been around for a while, you might remember his vicious attack on Elizabeth Warren in 2011, when she was serving as President Barack Obama’s adviser on the implementation of the Troubled Asset Relief Program in the wake of the early aughts financial crisis when the banksters crashed the economy. He was carrying the banksters’ water in 2011 when he made that very deliberate attack on Warren.
It’s important because he’s still carrying their water, and of all the sectors that are freaking out about the possibility of a debt default, financial services is at the top. It’s important because it’s highlighting the very weak position McCarthy is in—pressured from the Freedom Caucus, which can pull the rug out from under him at any time on one side, and from the powerful interests that get Republicans elected on the other.
Here’s another problem for McCarthy: So far the Senate Republicans who normally help solve these kinds of crises are leaving it all on his head. As of now, they’re not showing any inclination to jump in and mediate between him and the White House.
“What matters is really what the House can create,” Sen. Thom Tillis told Politico. “They’re in a position, they have the gavels. We have to see what sort of strategy they think works to a successful outcome.” He added, “If it’s purely a party-line vote there [in the House], it probably won’t get 60 votes here. And so that’s why we’ve got to look and see what they can put down that would actually garner at least some number of Democrat votes.”
Sen. Susan Collins, who normally loves nothing more than jumping in to play bipartisan dealmaker, wants nothing to do with this one. At least not right now. She told Politico her “preference would be for the president to sit down with Speaker McCarthy, listen to one another and work out an agreement.”
“In the end it’s going to have to be something that House Republicans and the president agree on. Let’s see what they can figure out,” Senate Minority Whip John Thune chimed in. “That’s the best strategy, for us.”
Which Biden definitely does not have to do. Not right now. Make McCarthy feel all this heat. Make him negotiate with his own conference first.
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