For months, the political world was stuck in a frustrating ditch. Congressional Republicans — with a minority in the Senate and a narrow majority in the House — launched a debt ceiling crisis, declaring their intention to crash the economy deliberately unless their demands were met.
Democrats then asked GOP leaders what their demands were. “We don’t actually know,” Republicans responded.
After several months of this utterly bonkers dynamic, House Republican leaders — ignoring their earlier commitments to an above-board process — completed a ransom note behind closed doors, skipped the committees, and bypassed any meaningful policy scrutiny. Yesterday afternoon, as NBC News reported, the party managed to pass the ransom note as a piece of legislation — but just barely.
The Republican-controlled House voted Wednesday to pass a bill to raise the debt limit, slash spending and roll back key pieces of President Joe Biden’s agenda after a series of concessions overnight to win over stubborn GOP holdouts. … [P]assage of the bill on a 217-215 vote hands Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., a small and much-needed symbolic victory, underscoring his ability to bring together his razor-thin, often rambunctious majority.
The outcome was by no means assured. The GOP leader introduced his Limit, Save, Grow Act last week, but as recently as earlier this week, he still didn’t have the votes. Just 48 hours before the floor debate, McCarthy expected to muscle the legislation through anyway, telling members his bill would not be changed.
The House speaker soon after realized that several members of his own conference were prepared to kill his plan, at which point McCarthy quietly changed the unchangeable legislation, caving to extremists and making it slightly worse.
Following up on our earlier coverage, the GOP’s hostage note is better described as a right-wing fantasy than a serious piece of federal policymaking. In order to prevent Republicans from deliberately…
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