October 9, 2023

Speaker Kevin McCarthy is out, and so are the headlines. According to the MSM, the Republicans are in full self-destruction mode, the radicals have taken over, the House of Representatives is in chaos, and 2024 is looking brighter by the day for the Democrats. Maybe that’s true — but maybe it isn’t. It depends on how the Republicans respond to this episode. An important lesson has just been delivered. If the Republicans learn it, they may come out stronger than ever.

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The lesson is that in a system which depends on good-faith negotiations, integrity is important, and promises matter. When men working within that system lack honor, agreements aren’t agreements, and deals aren’t deals. Without honor, the system can’t work — and hasn’t been working for many years.

Before American history became minority oppression studies, we were regaled with tales of “I cannot tell a lie” Washington, and “Honest” Abe Lincoln. Integrity in government was a valued virtue.

But somewhere along the way virtue stopped being valued. We started accepting leadership with somewhat lower standards. I don’t associate integrity with George “No new taxes” Bush, or honesty with Bill “I did not have sex with that woman” Clinton. None of their successors seem to have had a particularly close relationship with honesty either.

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Unfortunately, dishonesty and treachery have become so commonplace in Washington, D.C. that they have become accepted as standard operating procedure. But treachery comes with a downside, as Speaker McCarthy just learned.

At a time when the federal government is swimming in debt — and its bureaucracy is growing like a malignant tumor — Americans gave the Republicans a slim majority in the House after the midterm election to address it. It was essentially a two-year probationary period to demonstrate that they were the right people for the job. A few members of the Freedom Caucus held fast and got promises from Kevin McCarthy to hold the fiscal line. In exchange for that promise and some accountability rule changes, they supported his election to Speaker of the House.

But then McCarthy worked with Democrats to raise the federal debt limit. Next, as we approached the end of the fiscal year, he worked with Democrats again to pass a continuing resolution — allowing federal spending to continue at its current level for another 45 days. At the rate the government is currently spending our money, we will pile up an additional $250 billion of debt during that month and a half.

Our current debt stands at an astronomical $33.5 trillion. That is $100,000 of debt for every man, woman, and child in America. That debt is not merely an abstraction. It has real consequences for Americans, because every taxpayer is servicing that debt. Their taxes are paying the interest on that debt. At our current prime rate, an average family of four’s taxes could go down by $22K per year, had our public servants not taken out all those loans!

Kevin McCarthy promised to address the approaching economic crisis. Then he broke that promise. But he was smart enough during the negotiations to get a promise from the Democrats that they wouldn’t support attempts to remove him from the Speaker’s chair. He apparently thought their promise would have more fidelity than his.

While McCarthy was betraying his caucus, he forgot that treachery is now standard operating procedure. He made a deal with the Democrats to protect his position, and they betrayed him. Just like McCarthy, their honor was secondary to achieving their goal. In this instance, their goal wasn’t to protect the Speaker, it was to disrupt the Republican Party before next year’s election. In such an environment, why did McCarthy think he could break a promise to his own caucus, yet trust his opponents? That’s rather poor judgement, no?