Finally, Someone is Held Accountable in Washington
Finally, Someone is Held Accountable in Washington
It may not be fair to the former Speaker, but let's hope his ouster motivates Congress to do its job - finally.
CHAOS!
Scrolling across social media and cable news this morning, one would think the sky is falling. At the Wall Street Journal, “Republicans Cut Off Their Own Heads,” is the editorial headline with, “They now have the chaos they wanted,” in admonishment. Chris Christie, appearing on Squawk Box on CNBC wondered, “what must President Zelenskyy be thinking about this as he wakes up this morning?” - as if any American should care what the authoritarian leader thinks about American politics. The New York Post headline called it a coup by Representative “Gaetz of Hell.”
Despite all of these school marms clinging righteously to arbitrary rules, and who are so easily scared out of their pants by a bit of uncertainty, it is true that a Speaker has never been ousted by Congress. At the same time, former Speaker McCarthy and the leaders in Congress are just as culpable (in fact one could argue more so) for the unprecedented challenges we now face as Americans than the President they love to blame for all of it. And, whether the Speaker is the right person, it is high time someone was held accountable for the complete malfeasance of governing currently displayed in Washington. If you are so shocked by the move, and you’ve collapsed in consternation upon hearing the news, let’s review a few other things that have never happened before, and which the Speaker was elected to solve:
Congress has not passed a SINGLE appropriations bill before the October 1 deadline since 2019, including 0 this year. The Speaker promised to fix this.
The national debt is $33T and a staggering 120% of GDP. Every member of Congress (current and past) is wholly responsible.
The annual deficit for this past fiscal year is expected to eclipse $2T - the highest ever except for the first COVID pandemic year. And the CBO projects it will remain that high for the next decade. McCarthy (as Minority Leader and then Speaker) presided over this profligacy.
There has been no vote in Congress for a Balanced Budget Amendment, as the Speaker promised.
The Continuing Resolution that recently passed - and cheered by many - locked in that $2T+ deficit spending while adding MORE spending.
Inflation continues at historic highs; the average family spends $700 more per month on basic goods and services than they did 2 years ago.
There were 2.7M encounters of illegal aliens at the Southern Border in FY2022 and will likely top 3M in FY 2023; a vast majority were released into the United States.
We’ve spent $113B on Ukraine, which bought us 500,000 dead and a stalemate with no end in sight. There is no plan to win, exit or stop funding this useless war.
Congress, despite promises to the contrary, continues to fund speech regimes at DHS and other agencies that engage with BigTech to demand censorship of citizen’s speech.
No one has been held accountable at the FDA or within the government for lying to doctors that Opioids like Oxycontin are non-addictive. The opioid crisis continues unabated.
No one has been held accountable at the CDC or otherwise for lying to the American people about the risks of the COVID vaccine
No one has been held accountable at NIH or NIAID for funding gain of function research that likely created the COVID virus and escaped the lab in Wuhan; and then covering up both.
Would anyone honestly look at this list and think any person in leadership is doing well?
Is the former Speaker responsible for all of these crises? Of course not.
Has he done anything meaningful since taking the gavel to resolve these crises? It does not appear so.
In fact, the Speaker, who Mike Allen at Politico called the “darling of K Street” on Morning Joe this morning, which means he is a bought and paid for agent of the lobbyists in Washington. If true, Mr. McCarthy had the most difficult job in the world - continuing to deliver sweetheart deals to corporations and other wealthy interests or deliver for the people and his populist caucus in Congress. One can’t do both.
Additionally, Mr. McCarthy did himself no favors over the weekend, in both daring Representative Gaetz to submit a motion to vacate and blaming Democrats for his problems, which reportedly convinced them to join Gaetz and his small minority of Republicans to oust the Speaker. Indeed, the former Speaker’s hubris may be the defining characteristic of his Speakership. He and his team have since ordered Nancy Pelosi and Steny Hoyer to vacate their swanky offices in a final move of petty retribution. Pride cometh before a fall.
Finally, in terms of what happens next, those same school marms crying about the chaos are also in a panic for the future. One wonders if they have spent any time watching the UK Parliament, whose Prime Minister is much more accountable to his fellow members of Parliament and changes regularly when the job is not done. The world does not end and the sky does not fall.
Next week, Steve Scalise (if he is healthy enough) or Jim Emmers will likely become the next Speaker. I suspect the Republicans, in a show of unity, will take the week to decide and vote the new Speaker in quickly. At that time our school marms can move on to cry foul about other window dressings they hold sacred, while the new Speaker (we pray) gets to work on the 14 issues listed above.
The Republic has rarely counted on one man or woman, and Kevin McCarthy was never that person. Mr. McCarthy was never destined to join Mount Rushmore.
It is my sincere hope that his loss is a new trend of accountability in Washington. If it is not, expect more firings by the people in 2024.