GOP rules changes are a hodgepodge of good, bad, and the misguided
Quin Hillyer
Video Embed
The concessions that Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) made to become speaker of the House, and the new rules package that includes some of those concessions, are on the whole a mixed bag.
Some of the proposed changes are excellent ideas. Some of them are awful. And one would be disastrous.
REPUBLICANS FIGHT OVER DEFENSE SPENDING CUTS
The two wisest changes would be to require that each of the 12 major annual Appropriations bills be voted on individually, instead of in a huge “omnibus,” and that no final vote could be held on legislation until lawmakers have had at least 72 hours to consider it. As it is, each of those 12 bills funding the “discretionary” part of the federal budget is composed of massive documents containing all sorts of minutiae and hundreds or thousands of individual spending directives. Only by considering them one at a time, as intended by the official budget process, can lawmakers have any chance to protect taxpayer interests.
Likewise, by readopting a broad version of something called the “Holman rule,” the House will make it easier for congressmen to offer amendments that strip individual items from spending bills and reduce the total spending allowed by the relevant amount. It’s also a good idea to require that the Congressional Budget Office provide estimates of the macroeconomic and budgetary effects of all “major legislation” so that legislators understand the full ramifications of the policies they would apply to (or inflict upon!) the public.
Reportedly, part of the bargain also involves a pledge to have Congress, in general, consider bills on single subjects rather than shoehorning together multiple policies that have little or nothing to do with each other. This is a great idea. It’s neither wise nor fair to force a member into a choice of whether to vote for a bill with Policy A that his constituents love but only at the expense of also approving unrelated Policy B that his constituents detest.
On the “perhaps good” side of the ledger is a resolution to create a committee to investigate what some call the “weaponization” of the federal government. There can be absolutely no doubt that the FBI and IRS, among others, have been politicized and sometimes abusive against ordinary citizens, and that congressional scrutiny thereof, especially with enforcement teeth and the abusers, is desperately needed. On the other hand, it’s not clear why this has to be the job of a special committee rather than of perfectly competent oversight committees that already exist. Maybe it is, but sometimes a special committee such as this can itself become counterproductive breeding grounds for zealotry and inane conspiracy theories.
It doesn’t help that some Republican members want to model the new committee on the Church Committee of the 1970s, which put major strictures on the CIA. Conservatives in those years didn’t like the Church Committee — they hated it. In the name of reining in CIA excesses, its left-wing chairman, Frank Church, hobbled the CIA’s ability to counter evil Soviet expansionism. What’s needed isn’t another Church Committee engaged in ideological jihad — it is a sober, even-handed attempt at oversight that reforms key agencies without destroying them.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
It also is a bad idea for McCarthy to agree to appoint members of the Freedom Caucus to major committees in proportions exceeding their actual numbers in the House and without traditional regard for seniority. Not only does this upend ordinary rules of fairness and tradition, but it also rewards his Republican adversaries more than his GOP supporters, further eroding his effective power to manage the workings of the House. At some point, the country itself gets hurt when the speaker of the “people’s House” is effectively emasculated.
There are other good and bad provisions for which space doesn’t allow discussion here (and I also commend this excellent column by my long-ago boss, former Rep. Bob Livingston of Louisiana), but the absolute worst, recklessly dangerous idea is an agreement to reduce defense spending back to the levels of fiscal 2022. If even Republican congressmen don’t understand the near-existential perils of a hollow military, then God help us all.