House Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s plan to hold the debt ceiling hostage is not new. Not only was the California Republican a member of the House GOP leadership the last time his party created such a crisis, McCarthy made no secret of his plans to threaten the nation’s economic security ahead of last fall’s midterm elections.
The Republican leader, in other words, has had plenty of time to figure out what he’s doing. It just doesn’t appear to be going especially well. Roll Call reported on the scripted speech the House speaker delivered late yesterday afternoon:
House Republicans have started downplaying their desire to cut spending in conjunction with lifting the debt limit, seeking to reframe their strategy as targeting “waste” and finding “efficiencies.” Speaker Kevin McCarthy delivered a speech Monday evening from a corridor outside his office known as the “speaker’s balcony hallway,” in which he described the national debt as “the greatest threat” to the nation’s future. But not once did McCarthy say Republicans would “cut” spending.
Over the course of the last several weeks, we’ve had some sense that Republicans would cause a deliberate economic catastrophe unless Democrats agreed to dramatic spending cuts. No one, including GOP officials themselves, seemed to have any idea what those cuts were supposed to entail or what the party even hoped to accomplish, but in the broadest possible sense, there appeared to be an overarching goal: To prevent default, Republicans would have to see significant cuts.
And so, when McCarthy announced plans to deliver formal remarks yesterday on the debt ceiling, some hoped that we might finally get some clarity on what GOP lawmakers expected to prevent them from hurting us. Maybe, some speculated, the speaker would start filling in the gaps on the Republicans’ hostage note.
It was wishful thinking. Not only did McCarthy fail to explain what spending cuts he and his party expect to see, he also…
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