It would be easy to blame the lunatics of the so-called “Freedom Caucus” for what is happening in Washington.
The 45 members of the caucus have said they will only accept an increase in the debt limit if Democrats agree to the following concessions:
Congress must agree to cut hundreds of billions of dollars in social spending, limit federal agencies’ future budgets, and abandon progressive elements of President Joe Biden’s economic agenda.
The Freedom Caucus announced Friday that its 45 members would consider voting to raise the debt limit if their colleagues in the House and Senate agree to:
— Eliminate Biden’s $400 billion student debt cancellation plan;
— Rescind unspent Covid-19 relief funds;
— End nearly $400 billion worth of clean energy investments approved in the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA);
— Repeal the IRA’s roughly $80 billion funding boost for the Internal Revenue Service (IRS);
— Restore Clinton-era work requirements on welfare recipients;
— Require congressional approval before any major federal regulations can take effect;
— Cap future federal spending at 2022 levels for the next 10 years; and
— Find “every dollar spent by Democrats that can be reclaimed for the American taxpayer.”
This is almost complete and total lunacy, but I don’t blame the 45 lunatics. To paraphrase a wonderful Bruce Willis quote from the ’80s television series “Moonlighting,” “Birds gotta fly, bees gotta be, idiots gotta idiot.”
Anyone expecting Marjorie Taylor Greene, Lauren Boebert, Matt Gaetz, Paul Gosar and the rest of the Freedom Caucus to do what’s good for the country is in for a big disappointment. But there are 222 Republicans in the House and 177 of them are not members of the Freedom Caucus.
Many of them represent districts where being in the Klan makes you a moderate, and I certainly don’t expect them to help.
But there are some Republicans who are more moderate, and some who represent districts Biden carried in the 2020 election. If only five of them were to vote with Democrats to raise the debt ceiling, the Freedom Caucus would be defeated.
What’s that you say? House Squeaker, er, Speaker Kevin McCarthy would punish them by taking away committee assignments?
Au contraire, mon frere.
The reasonable Republicans could demand there be no retaliation against them. If McCarthy tried to punish them, they could declare themselves independents and vote with Democrats, taking all those committee chairmanships away from Republicans and making McCarthy a very short-lived speaker.
Face it. The lunatics only win when good people don’t stand up to them.
It’s time to tell the Freedom Caucus they are completely free … to sit down and shut up.