Republicans are hoping to take control of Congress in 2023 following the midterm elections. But perhaps, they should be careful what they wish for.
Sometime in the fall of 2023, the nation’s ever-growing debt limit will reach its statutory limit of $31.5 trillion. At that point, it becomes an open question whether the putative House leader, Kevin McCarthy, will submit to the demands of leadership or play politics with the full faith and credit of the United States.
The debt limit is silly and redundant. It’s redundant because Congress will have already authorized the expenditures being added to the debt limit. If they don’t want to spend the money, why not vote the appropriations down?
They don’t want to do that. Too many old folks wouldn’t get their Social Security. Too many poor people would go without food because there’s no money for SNAP. So after bringing the budget to the brink, they authorize the money.
But that appropriation can’t be spent until the debt limit is raised. It’s embarrassing, really. A great, big, grown-up country like the United States acting like an irresponsible teenager with Dad’s credit card.
The debt limit has been described as “A hostage you can’t kill.” But what happens when Kevin McCarthy is the speaker of the House and decides to give killing the hostage a try?
A plausible hint of where McCarthy’s head is at will come when he appoints a new chairman of the Appropriations Committee. The leading contenders are Rep. Jason Smith (R-Mo.), the ranking Republican of the House Banking Committee, and Rep. Vern Buchanan (R-Fla.), who is the ranking Republican on the current committee.
Business leaders and Republican strategists say a key indicator of McCarthy’s approach will be who he and the GOP steering committee back to chair the powerful House Ways and Means Committee, given the debt limit talks fall under the panel’s jurisdiction.
As of now, the top two contenders to lead the committee are Rep. Jason Smith (R-Mo.), ranking Republican of the House Banking Committee, and Rep. Vern Buchanan (R-Fla.), who is seen as the Republican next in line.
Smith is more of a political firebrand and a close friend of McCarthy, while Buchanan is seen as a more mainstream Republican. The business community is warier of how Smith would handle a debt limit fight, multiple sources tell Axios.
Smith told Axios in a phone interview he thinks Republicans should leverage debt limit negotiations to “reverse” the administration’s “radical” policies — including by sending a bill gutting the Democratic agenda to President Biden’s desk and daring him to reject it.
Been there, done that. It doesn’t work to “dare” a president to do anything — especially when the media is always prepared to blame Republicans for anything bad that might happen. The threat only works with media cooperation — a distant prospect given the history of recent threats to shut down the government or default on the debt.
There is talk of gutting the $80 billion IRS bill and its 87,000 new employees. That would be a likely target in any power play by Republicans in a debt ceiling face-off with the White House.
But even the most optimistic projections of GOP gains in November still bring them up short of a veto-proof majority in the House and especially in the Senate. There’s just no substance to the threat to default on the debt if Biden doesn’t sign an IRS reform bill.
Related: House Dems Target New Narrative ‘Deniers’ for Persecution
Republicans have been salivating to get back into the majority. They have a list as long as your forearm of investigations they want to begin, starting with Hunter Biden and his shady overseas connections. But once the pressure is ratcheted up on debt ceiling negotiations, they may wish they had stayed in bed on election day.
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