Republican Infighting Stalls Spending Bills In The US House
On Tuesday,Republican infighting stalls spending billsin the US House. Party bickering was making it hard for Congress to pay for the government and keep it from shutting down partially at the end of the month.
By a vote of 214 to 212, the House turned down a measure that would have started debate on a $886 billion fiscal 2024 defense appropriations bill. Five conservative Republicans joined Democrats in voting against their own party's measure.
House Speaker Kevin McCarthy's divided Republican majority made it hard for lawmakers to agree on a short-term plan to keep government agencies running after funding runs out on September 30.
Republican Infighting Stalls Spending Bills
Some of its own members say that the Republican Party's fight against itself has turned its House majority into a "clown show" and a "dysfunction caucus" and is giving wins to the Chinese Communist Party.
Extremists on the far right, moderates, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, and his nihilistic enemies have been fighting for days. On Tuesday, the fighting between the two parties hit a new peak on the south side of the US Capitol.
The fight over how and if to keep the government from shutting down has split the House GOP majority. Different ideas have come up amid a backlash from conservatives.
Rep. Byron Donalds, R-Fla., who was one of the main people in charge of negotiating the current short spending plan for the House Republicans, slammed moderate members who are becoming more open to working with Democrats to avoid a government shutdown.
The already split House GOP majority is getting even more divided over what kind of stopgap spending bill, called a continuing resolution (CR), to pass or even if one should be passed at all.
Donalds told reporters on Tuesday after a closed-door House GOP conference meeting:
“„A lot of my colleagues, Freedom Caucus members, etc., need to be very concerned about the fact that we do have some Republican members who are willing to sign on to a clean [continuing resolution] with the Democrats, and basically eliminates out leverage to do anything. I don’t take that lightly. There’s multiple games afoot in this town.- Byron Donalds
The Republican majority's wacky attempts to hurt themselves seem to be putting the U.S. on a road toward a government shutdown before the end of next week when new funding for the government is due. This could mean that government workers who provide basic services will have to take time off, that troops won't get paid, and that the economy could be hurt badly if the standoff lasts for a long time.
McCarthy hasn't been able to get hardliners to work with him. They want guarantees that fiscal 2024 spending won't go over a top line for 2022 of $1.47 trillion, which is $120 billion less than what McCarthy and Democratic President Joe Biden agreed to in May. As chair of the House Rules Committee, Republican Representative Tom Cole was upset that only a small number of his party members voted against the rule.
After the rest of the congressional races from last week's elections are decided, it's likely that the Republicans will gain a razor-thin majority in the House. Republicans in the Senate lost a seat in Pennsylvania to Democrat John Fetterman, and they are now trying to win back a spot in Georgia in a runoff election next month so that they don't lose more seats.
McCarthy's leadership team is still trying to find a way to pass a stopgap spending bill called a "continuing resolution" (CR) to keep the government running and give them more time to end a fierce fight over hardliners' demands for huge spending cuts. But the rebels might have enough votes to stop the bill from even getting to the floor of the House and demand more changes.
Chaos and bad feelings often reach their peak in Congress right before the fever breaks and a clever solution comes up to put a problem off for a few weeks. But the Republican majority is so small - the speaker can lose only four votes with the present margin and the party is so deeply divided that past results may not be a good indicator of what will happen in the future. And for a small group of Trump supporters on the far right, the chance to shut down a government that many of them dislike could win them points with core voters and the ex-president, and may be an end in itself.
Republican infighting refers to internal conflicts, disagreements, and divisions within the Republican Party, one of the two major political parties in the United States. These conflicts can arise over a wide range of issues, including policy, strategy, leadership, and ideology. Republican infighting can take various forms, such as disagreements between different factions or wings of the party, public disputes among prominent Republican figures, or tensions between grassroots activists and the party establishment.
Final Words
Multiple sources said that a vote to move forward with the stopgap spending bill put together by House Freedom Caucus and Main Street Caucus negotiators was taken off the schedule on Tuesday. This comes as the Sept. 30 deadline to keep the government funded gets closer and closer.
The military vote was close, 212-214. Five Republicans in the tight majority voted with Democrats to kill it: Reps. Andy Biggs, R-Ariz., Dan Bishop, R-N.C., Ken Buck, R-Colo., Ralph Norman, R-S.C., and Matt Rosendale, R-Mont.