Speaker Kevin McCarthy is trapped in the kind of vicious cycle familiar to anyone who’s seen “Groundhog Day.”
Soon after he puts forth a proposal to fund the government or move forward on individual spending bills, he gets thwarted by a small but powerful group of naysayers within his party. He can only lose a handful of Republicans on any given vote, forcing him to take repeated whacks at the same Sept. 30 government funding deadline.
Without enlisting Democratic support — which would threaten his speakership — the small group of ultraconservatives have the power to kill proposal after proposal, as they have. And McCarthy needs the House to move on its own bill to avert a shutdown if he has any hope of getting a GOP proposal in the mix for future negotiations with the Democratic-controlled Senate.
But of course, the more ideas McCarthy throws out with no majority among his own members, the more he risks getting jammed by the Senate and taking it on the chin when the government is shuttered. So for those still trying to keep up, let’s look back at all the spaghetti he’s tossed at the wall this week.
Sunday night: McCarthy convened a conference call to pitch and promote a deal within the fractured party to temporarily fund the government, plus revive some conservative border initiatives. But opposition quickly mounted, to the point that the speaker clearly lacked the votes for a deal that would slash spending for most federal agencies and keep the government running for a month.
Monday: McCarthy’s ill-fated pitch emerged in full, including sweeping 8 percent cuts across domestic spending, but exemptions for veterans and defense. It included disaster aid for states rocked by flooding, storms and wildfires. A key provision that negotiators hoped would bring conservatives on board would beef up border enforcement and change asylum and immigration laws.
McCarthy even flirted with forcing his holdout members to take a vote on the emerging deal, daring them to oppose it. But that never happened — the careful constellation of priorities aimed at pleasing different corners of the House GOP still wasn’t enough to get the support he needed to take action on the proposal.
Tuesday: For the second time under McCarthy’s leadership, a procedural vote was tanked by Republican discord.
McCarthy wanted to get one Republican-led spending bill across the finish line, a first step toward keeping his promise to pass all 12 standalone bills. But hardliners blocked debate, making Pentagon funding — usually an easy sell to conservatives — a casualty of the roiling battle between McCarthy and his conservative critics.
Wednesday: The sense that McCarthy is throwing legislative linguini (or Jell-O) at the wall and seeing what sticks became literal. As Olivia reported, McCarthy began throwing ideas up on a white board during an evening conference meeting and queried his members in real time if they’d back this idea or that.
GOP members exited the meeting with buoyed spirits and a plan to move forward on one single spending bill.
McCarthy’s new plan — a stopgap funding bill at the $1.47 trillion spending level with conservative immigration policies attached — also raised spirits that a GOP-led proposal to avert a government shutdown could be nigh.
Thursday: Already McCarthy’s new plan is in trouble. More than a half dozen Republicans have come out against it.
