Republicans must use political capital on spending cuts, not speaker spats
Tiana Lowe Doescher
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For three weeks now, the House of Republicans has not had a speaker, and the crazy eight Republicans who elected to blow up the party’s only position of power by voting with the entire Democratic caucus have been unable to find a candidate as popular as Kevin McCarthy, who was ousted from the seat despite the support of 210 members of Congress. Since the California Republican’s expulsion, the GOP has nominated three separate candidates, held three separate floor votes, and has failed all three times. Jim Jordan’s most successful attempt at the top job netted just 200 votes on the floor, while Democratic Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries actually beat McCarthy’s support twice. House Republicans moved on from the Ohio congressman to Tom Emmer, but after an internal whip count showing he didn’t have the votes, the Minnesotan promptly dropped out of the circus.
It really, truly goes without saying that the nation needs a speaker as sorely as the party does. Without a speaker or granting the speaker pro tempore, Patrick McHenry, formal powers, the entire GOP is locked out of leadership within the ranks of the federal government. Republicans also locked out of the formal proceedings of averting the government shutdown due next month and the funding of our Israeli allies, currently under siege by Hamas terrorists.
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House Republicans are evidently rankled by conservatives looking for ideological purity rather than ruthless pragmatism. At this rate, the GOP won’t be able to find a single person capable of scoring more congressional support than Jeffries, let alone an effective tactician in the model of Mitch McConnell, whom Republicans really ought to be emulating rather than deriding, considering the extraordinary success of the Republican Senate leader’s remaking of the federal judiciary.
So, let me remind Republicans of a simple reality: Voters gave Republicans a majority for a reason, and the longer the party continues to waste it, the greater the odds the electorate takes that majority away come 2024. A smart coalition would choose a boring, bureaucratic speaker who costs Republicans nothing to support. Then Republicans should save that political capital for successes actually worth the expense.
The GOP could learn something from Nancy Pelosi, a speaker so effective for Democrats that Republicans correctly loathe her. During her first speakership, the Californian built up a margin so wide that when President Barack Obama was ready to sign Obamacare into law, she had the votes to transform fundamentally one-fifth of the American economy. It cost Democrats their majority, but there is no question that a decade and Obamacare’s unquestionable destruction of a competitive healthcare market later, arguably the sole intention of Obamacare, made the temporary majority loss well worth it for the party’s ideologues. During her second speakership, Pelosi got to spend trillions with both Presidents Donald Trump and Joe Biden, lighting the stability of the United States dollar on fire and culminating in a 17% increase in prices in under three years.
But again, for Democrats who see seigniorage as an effective way to tax the entire electorate without casting a single vote in Congress, the worst inflationary crisis in 40 years might have been worth it. It cost Pelosi her speakership for a second time, but even then, only barely, thanks to the corrosive candidate quality crisis that plagued Republicans in the midterm elections.
When Jordan was still jockeying for the top job, he reportedly offered to holdouts, such as the Long Island Republicans who won blue and purple districts, a pledge to blow up one of Trump’s most successful tools for deficit reduction, the state-and-local tax deduction. Jordan has his understanding of political capital and when to use it exactly wrong. Those swing district Republicans shouldn’t burn their political capital on assisting one man’s career climbing. They should instead be holding out to spend that capital on eliminating the SALT deduction entirely. While the SALT deduction benefits rich New Yorkers on a personal level, it is inherently anti-conservative and inflationary, a mechanism to make fiscally responsible states subsidize the reckless spending of wealthy Democrats.
When Republicans coalesce to find their fourth speaker-designate, they ought to remember that this vote actually should be easy. Far from being flashy, the ideal speaker will be inoffensive, unmemorable, and, above all, useful in helping Republicans spend political capital on actual legislative accomplishments.