The Menace and the Shame of the GOP House

Over the past eight years, the Republican Party has been transformed from a generally staid institution representing the allure of low taxes, conservative social cultural policies and laissez-faire capitalism into a party of blatant chaos and disruption.

Thomas B. Edsall, New York Times

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With the notable exception of rallies organized by or for Donald Trump, the House of Representatives may offer the most conspicuous display of the Trumpian virus that has infected and overcome the Republican Party. If some House Republicans have not succumbed to the virus, they have shown neither the competence nor the courage to fight it. The last blog noted that Kevin McCarthy, through the multiple capitulations he offered to gain the Speakership, gave effective control of the House to its Nihilist Faction (NFers). The NFers are largely in the Trump mold, but they are proving to be even more radical and reckless than Trump himself.

The last post of this blog also noted that the most dire consequence of the NFers’ control, would be a failure to increase the debt ceiling and the national and global fiscal catastrophe that would follow. Such a failure is the greatest potential menace of irresponsible conduct by House Republicans. In the brief period since that post, the possibility of such a catastrophe became more real when we actually reached the debt ceiling. To be sure, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen can take a variety of emergency measures that will put off an actual default for a few months. But there will be negative impacts even before then, and there is no assurance that the NFers will relent at any point before an actual default.

Republicans’ demand for ransom in order to approve an increase in the debt ceiling is staggering: a spending reduction of $130 billion that would be devastating to both domestic programs and military preparedness. There appears to be little basis for negotiation. As Representative Mike Rogers, Republican of Alabama and chairman of the Armed Services Committee declared during the saga of McCarthy’s election as Speaker, “You don’t negotiate with these kinds of people. These are legislative terrorists.”

Michael Strain of the conservative American Enterprise Institute has described the result if a default should occur:

The Dow would plunge by thousands of points per day, and the credibility of the US – its trustworthiness as a country that pays its debts on time – would be substantially eroded. After a day or two of this chaos, a clean bill to increase the debt ceiling would pass both houses of Congress with overwhelming bipartisan support. Republicans would have accomplished nothing.

Even that scenario, grim as it appears, may well be overly optimistic in assuming that a default would be promptly rectified.

Another principal element of the GOP menace is their express intention to investigate and attack the Biden administration, and Biden personally, on every conceivable ground. Oversight is, of course, an important and legitimate function of Congress. And it would hardly be unprecedented for partisan consideration to intrude on the exercise of that responsibility. But Republicans are clearly intent on raising partisanship to new levels. Thus, they are seeking to damage the Biden administration wherever possible, (See the New York Times “Here Are All The Ways Republicans Plan To Investigate Biden.”) At the same time, they will attempt to protect Donald Trump by interfering in the ongoing investigations into the various aspects of his misconduct.

While Republicans’ scorched earth tactics should be a source of shame, individual House members provide even more vivid examples. The poster child here is undoubtedly the rather weird George Santos, who was elected on the basis of a resume so removed from reality that it might be the envy of Baron Munchausen. In addition, the highly suspicious financing of Santos’s campaign is under active investigation by multiple state, federal and international authorities. Nevertheless, while a number of Republicans from Santos’s district and elsewhere have demanded his ouster, Speaker McCarthy continues to cling to him as a valued member of his minuscule majority and has appointed Santos to the committees on Small Business and Science, Space and Technology.

Alongside the Santos spectacle, Republican House members are being given highly questionable rewards of plum committee assignments; such members notably include the remarkably unattractive personages of Marjorie Taylor Greene and Paul Gosar. As reported by Heather Cox Richardson:

[Greene] who was removed from committee assignments in the last Congress for her racist and antisemitic conspiracy theories as well as her encouragement of violence against Democrats, has a spot on the Homeland Security Committee. Such spots are usually filled by those with experience in either the military or intelligence, neither of which she has.

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Greene has not just that plum assignment, but another on the House Oversight and Accountability Committee. That committee manages investigations and has emerged as a coveted spot for the far right as its members prepare to go after figures in the Biden administration.

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Representative Paul Gosar (R-AZ), who was removed from committees two years ago after threatening Democratic lawmakers on social media, is now back on the Natural Resources committee. He also is now on the Oversight Committee.

The silver lining for Democrats is that Republicans may pay a price in 2024 for their partisan excesses and lack of interest in substantive legislation. But that will not make the next two years any more pleasant or of more benefit to the country.