Kevin McCarthy would not have dreamt of getting into the history books, that too for all the wrong reasons. His election as Speaker of the House of Representatives went into 15 rounds of voting. That McCarthy just about gave away everything to get the gavel came as a disbelief to many within the Grand Old Party, but not to the extremists and hardliners who were hell bent on extracting every drop that could be squeezed.
In the end McCarthy, who could have easily got the top post had only his party won comfortably in the November elections, had to be content in allowing a far right proposition that it takes only one member to introduce a Resolution to boot the Speaker in getting the gavel. And if McCarthy believes that the Freedom Caucus members are not going to keep their word he is again living in a dream world.
If the events since January 3 are anything to go by, the wild scenes on the floor of the House together with the fact that some six members of the Republican Party preferred to vote only “present” in the final round should be indicative of things to come, to the Biden White House and the Republican Party.
The real problem for the White House, Democrats and Republicans is the attitude of a small group of about 19 or 20 far right Conservatives who could and would hold up things on the House floor and even put a brake on things moving out of Committees.
So desperate was McCarthy that he has apparently promised plum posts in Committees to members of the Freedom Caucus. And this at a time when the far right was sharpening its knives not just against the Biden administration but also against fellow Republicans in the Senate who are accused of being “soft” on Biden. It is not just in the realm of the so-called liberal policies of the Democratic administration that hardliners in the GOP are up in arms. In a broad sense the handful of Republican holdouts may be dismissed as a group of election deniers who owe their allegiance to former President Donald Trump.
In fact McCarthy himself was a one-time Trump loyalist until all hell broke loose on January 6, 2021 by way of rioting on Capitol Hill. That he subsequently made up with his former boss by paying a visit to Mar-a-Lago and Trump worked the phone lines to pressure the Freedom Caucus members to vote for McCarthy is a story for a another day.
Spending legislations laced with political pork may not be a problem for the Biden administration. The real problem with the far right and the Freedom Caucus comes in their determination to act tough on raising the debt ceiling that Congress deals and passes frequently. Extracting policy concessions on issues like Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid will be difficult for any administration but holding the raising of debt ceiling hostage to spending cuts will have deep implications to the American and global economies. Congressman Scott Perry, Chairman of the Freedom Caucus, has maintained that members are tired of spending and debt limits getting “jammed down our throats” but others believe that linkages are just plain blackmail.
Biden’s predicament
The 118th Congress will undoubtedly be a huge problem for the Biden White House and Democrats, but is equally a problem for moderate and traditional Republicans who would hate to see a further slide in their political fortunes in the elections of 2024.
The Grand Old Party’s hope for a massive win in November 2022 turned out to be a damp squib. As it is there is some discomfort in conservative circles that Trump is once against running for Presidency in 2024 and in the implications of a split within ranks should the former President run as an Independent. The last thing the GOP would want is not only a potential loss of the White House but also a further political erosion on Capitol Hill in the House and Senate in 2024.
The writer has been a senior journalist in Washington DC for 14 years covering North America and the UN