WATCH: Tiana Lowe ‘sympathizes’ with GOP fears that McCarthy won’t abate spending
Steff Thomas
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Washington Examiner commentary writer Tiana Lowe said she is “incredibly sympathetic” to House Republicans’ fears that Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) won’t be able to hold the line as speaker when it comes to combating excessive spending.
“I am incredibly sympathetic to the fear of McCarthy not being able to hold the line, but the issue is, that’s not a McCarthy problem. That is a Republican problem, right?” Lowe said on Fox Business’s Mornings with Maria.
“But the fact that, you know, McCarthy’s leadership style with [President Joe Biden] has been to wait until the last minute, flail, and try and block the budget. Then we just spent $1.7 trillion on top of our $31 trillion national debt,” she added, referring to the omnibus spending bill signed by Biden last week.
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Cutting down on government spending has been a stated priority for House Republicans now that they have secured a majority in the House of Representatives. One of the concessions McCarthy’s opponents have pushed is for more restrictions that block members from earmarking spending on unrelated bills for their own projects.
Republicans in both the House and the Senate are expected to use the nation’s debt ceiling as leverage to push for policy changes. Lowe argues that decisions shouldn’t be made hastily, as raising the debt ceiling or defaulting will bring its own problems.
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“So the issue that I think everyone’s focusing on is the debt ceiling, right? But let’s think about what that fight really means. We have unfunded liabilities. Do we want our national credit rating to go down? We can’t afford that,” Lowe said.
“We cannot afford to have all of our creditors believe that we cannot pay them back. And that’s what letting the debt ceiling default or not voting to increase it does in effect,” she added.
Lowe explained that this is why the House needs a speaker in place who can hold the line on cutting the spending that has been prevalent in the last two years of the Biden administration and under Democratic control of both chambers of Congress.
“You need someone to be able to hold the line at the beginning, and if you aren’t going to raise taxes … if you’re not going to start taxing the endowments of the universities, if you’re not going to start going after these things that we’ve effectively federalized, then you need to cut spending,” Lowe said.
“[But] no one wants to talk about it,” she added.
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To secure the gavel, McCarthy needs 218 lawmakers to vote for him. In the new Congress, the GOP only holds a nine-vote advantage in the House, giving the California Republican a challenge as he faces growing opposition within his party.
After failing to make headway in three rounds of roll call votes on Wednesday, McCarthy proposed a new bout of concessions to some of his most stubborn opponents in a last-ditch effort to win their support.
The House reconvened Thursday afternoon for its third day of the speaker election.