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Accountability national politics & policies tax policy

Kick the Can

At first blush, it seems like the most pointless political move ever.

When Rep. Matt Gaetz (R.-Fla.) moved to oust Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R.-Cal.) from his role as Speaker of the House, lots of eyebrows were raised, and at least one pair of lips was licked. But did it make any sense?

This has never happened before, a House Speaker ousted by his own party mid-session.

That’s not an argument against the move, though. It was Gaetz who had blocked McCarthy back in January, through more than a dozen votes, allowing the moderate Republican to serve only with explicit conditions. Gaetz now says that McCarthy has failed to meet those conditions. Arguably, that’s accountability in action. Good?

Or mere revenge? After all, McCarthy had just made a deal with a sizable number of minority Democrats to fund the government and prevent a federal shutdown — thus kicking the overspending/​insolvency can down the road again. Gaetz and his closest colleagues in the House made the same deal with the opposition party, ousting McCarthy. 

It’s a game of kick the can, however you look at it.

Gaetz argues that McCarthy did not do what was required to bring fiscal responsibility, such as un-​package spending bills. “We told you how to use the power of the purse: individual, single-​subject spending bills that would allow us to have specific review, programmatic analysis and,” explained Gaetz, “that would allow us to zero out the salaries of the bureaucrats who have broken bad, targeted President Trump or cut sweetheart deals for Hunter Biden.”

But the deed is done. McCarthy’s out. Now, who to replace him?

Funny that no one mentions the wild plan to put Trump into the job — you know, the plan first floated after Election 2020?

It was such a snickered-​at notion, just a goofy way of taking 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue from Joe Biden.

Still, it was a plan. Only in the next few days and weeks will we learn if Gaetz really has one.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.


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Categories
national politics & policies term limits U.S. Constitution

The Demand for Term Limits

Lots of talk about term limits last week — in Washington. 

Of all places. 

What bizarre chain of events caused career congressmen to start jawboning and horse-​trading about the popular reform that most of them viscerally oppose?

It was the work-​product of a small number of hardcore conservative Republican legislators, a mere 20, flexing their strength and commitment at a critical political point — the election of the House Speaker — and armed with concrete demands.

“We offered Kevin McCarthy terms last evening that he rejected,” Rep. Matt Gaetz (R‑Fla.) told reporters last Tuesday. One of those? “We’ve sought a vote in [the] first quarter of the 118th Congress on term limits.”

By week’s end, however, McCarthy had been elected Speaker of the House … but only after having pledged to bring to the floor that congressional term limits amendment, authored by Rep. Ralph Norman (R‑SC), one of the 20 holdouts, along with making other concessions

Meet the Press host Chuck Todd yesterday cast shade on the effort, calling these “show votes.” 

While it’s true that incumbents are unlikely to vote for the term limits amendment in the 2/​3 supermajority the Constitution requires, or for the balanced budget amendment for which the holdouts, mostly Freedom Caucus members, also secured a commitment from McCarthy. 

“We’ve got to start taking steps to make fundamental change in America,” Rep. James Comer (R‑Ky.) told Todd. And putting every U.S. representative on record on term limits sounds like a great first step for early 2023.

Worth the battle.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.


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