‘A Clown Show’: Republicans Go To War Over Federal Spending... With Each Other
Members battle over potential government shutdown
With just days left to pass most of the spending bills required to keep the federal government open, the battle among Republicans has begun spilling out into public.
House Speaker Kevin McCarthy has been unable to get Republicans to approve most of the dozen or so must-pass spending bills as he's found himself hostage to demands by far-right members in a chamber where McCarthy and the Republicans hold the tiniest of margins.
Without further action, the government is set to shut down on October 1.
At his weekly press conference Tuesday afternoon, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky) sent a clear signal to his House colleagues when he made it very clear that he’s “not a fan of government shutdowns.”
“I’ve seen a few of them over the years. They never have produced a policy change and they’ve always been a loser for Republicans politically,” he said.
That quickly brought a public rebuke on Fox News by McCarthy antagonist Rep Matt Gaetz (R-Fla), who is arguing against a continuing resolution, or CR, as a short-term gap-filler until the regular spending bills are approved.
“I’m glad that Leader McConnell can muster an admonishment, he must be feeling better. But when it comes to a clean CR, if House moderates want to join with Democrats to advance every feature of the Biden government thinking that that’s going to be good for them politically, they will by signing their own political death warrant and handing it to their executioner,” he said. “Because it won’t be conservatives going after those moderates in the next elections. It will be the very Democrats they’re in coalition with.”
In a separate interview, Gaetz seemed prepared for an inevitable shutdown.
“We can’t blame Joe Biden and the Democrats for why the Republican-controlled House of Representatives hasn’t passed single-subject spending bills. That’s our fault. So, we have to deal with that. We will likely have to endorse some degree of a shutdown,” he said.
But such an embrace of a government shutdown brought criticism by freshman Rep Mike Lawler, of New York, one of the Republican lawmakers elected in a district carried by President Biden in 2020.
“This is not conservative Republicanism, this is stupidity. The idea that we’re going to shut the government down when we don’t control the Senate, we don’t control the White House — these people can’t define a win, they don’t know how to take yes for an answer, it’s a clown show,” he said. “You keep running lunatics, you’re going to be in this position.”
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