On Eve Of Federal Shutdown, Republicans Descend Into Chaos
Democrats remain the adults in the room
House Speaker Kevin McCarthy's last-ditch attempt to stave off a federal government shutdown collapsed Friday, leaving the House to turn to chaos and Republicans to fall into intraparty rancor.
The legislation McCarthy backed that would have kept the government open for a month at reduced spending levels went down to a stunning defeat Friday, with a group of nearly two dozen hard-right Republicans handing McCarthy yet another defeat in his efforts to avoid the first federal shutdown in five years.
The McCarthy bill, which would have given lawmakers more time to work out a long-term solution, failed on a 198-232 vote.
Republicans began swiping among themselves, with some taking direct aim at McCarthy antagonist Rep Matt Gaetz (R-Fla), who opposed the legislation.
“There’s only one person to blame for any potential government shutdown and that’s Matt Gaetz. He is not a conservative Republican. He’s a charlatan,” said Rep Mike Lawler of New York, one of the House Republicans elected in a district carried by President Biden.
Democrats, meanwhile, sought to embody responsibility and maturity in governance.
“Well, what I mean by that is, and we’ll talk more about this, but the tragedy, of course, is visited on federal workers and on people who rely on federal programs. And by the way, that’s most of us. At the end of the day, that’s not just food stamp recipients, that’s also people who are trying to renew a passport, or sign up for Medicare or sign up for Social Security,” said Rep Jim Himes (D-Conn). “But what I was referring to in that thing is, you know, it’s a dangerous world out there. I spent a lot of my time on national security. There is a competition for the world’s confidence between China and the United States, Russia, Iran, North Korea. And when we deliberately hurt ourselves for no good reason, in fact, for a stupid reason, which is why it sort of felt like this was all being engineered by kindergartners, the world takes notice.
“And those people who believe that President Xi of China may be right, that democracy doesn’t work, they look at us beclowning ourselves as we’re about to do and say, ‘You know what, President Xi has a point, democracy doesn’t really seem to work,’” Himes added. “And that’s a very dangerous signal to send to the world.”
Rep Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn) rose on the House floor to make the point that the shutdown also will hurt constituents of the Republicans supporting the shutdown.
“It gets cold in the winter time in South Dakota, but the gentleman is happy to see 24,000 individuals not get energy assistance, low-income heating assistance. So, they may be taking up a collection of hats and coats and gloves, etc., because they’re not going to get their LIHEAP benefits in a cold climate,” she said, referring to the federal energy assistance program.
Rep James Clyburn (D-SC) said that he hopes McCarthy is turning to House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) to help solve the crisis.
“I suspect negotiations are going on between the speaker and Hakeem Jeffries, the Democratic leader. He is going to inform us as to what the validity of any arguments may be, what the viability of any approaches might be,” Clyburn said. “We want to keep the government open, and I would challenge anybody to give me one instance in the 30 years I have been here when you’ve heard a Democrat advocating for closing down the government. That’s not the way we do business. We sit down, we negotiate, we try to find common ground, and we go forward from there.
“This whole notion of voting things down, threatening people, bullying people, we just don’t approach governance that way,” he added. “We try to maintain an atmosphere of goodwill and hope we can find common ground. And if the speaker were to do that, I think he’d find a listening ear in Leader Jeffries.”
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