By Rick Manning
The constant battling between members of the House GOP Conference sometimes can seem like silly high school student body politics, but it isn’t and it is important to understand why the fight exists.
Generally speaking there are three distinct groups of Republicans in the House, and for that matter the Senate as well.
The first group believes that America is on a precipice of disaster which must be met head-on, right now, regardless of consequences. This group believes that the ship of state is on a river rapidly approaching a fatal waterfall and is desperately trying to convince their shipmates of the impending doom while trying to steer the boat toward a branch of the river that doesn’t go over the edge.
The second also believes that America is on a pathway that ends disastrously but by working toward gradual corrections, our nation will survive as it always has.
The third doesn’t see the doom at all. They seem to believe that no problem cannot be solved with more military spending and lower taxes. While aware of the concerns of both of the above groups, this cohort thinks that they are either simply over-reacting to events or in the case of the first group, dangerous alarmists who are rocking the boat by yelling waterfall when they don’t see it.
While the majority of the House Republican Conference are in the second and third groups, the first rightfully believes it is their duty to their sworn oath of office to do everything in their power to turn around the country before it is too late. This group is hard for the second and third to understand because they are willing to risk their political careers and the perks of Washington by using their limited power to do everything to stop the current destructive course.
Here is the problem.
The first group is right on all of their concerns about issues ranging from illegal immigration to cultural Marxist indoctrination in the schools to the almost impossible to fix annual deficit and the accompanying crushing national debt. They just don’t have the votes to pass fixes, even in the House.
So, they are growing increasingly frustrated that in spite of their warnings and efforts, the current one-vote House majority does not have the will to do whatever is necessary to make significant changes now.
The result of this urgency is that the first group withholds their votes from legislation which has fixes that can pass the House, as they are insufficient to do anything more than at best putting an undersized bandage on a gaping wound. This failure to support weak, short-term fixes, forces the Speaker, who doesn’t have the votes to sustain a government shutdown or other similar responses, to pass even weaker legislation to prevent getting run over altogether by the go-along/get along Republicans and the Democrats.
The passage of the Ukraine, Israel, Taiwan supplemental spending bill is a perfect example of this dynamic
Many GOP House members, for fiscal and national security reasons, opposed sending $60 billion to Ukraine, and had doubts about providing additional funds to Israel or Taiwan in light of our own nation’s dire fiscal situation, and the unwillingness of our President to defend our border even as he demanded billions to defend Ukraine’s.
For months, U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) held the line against putting anything resembling President Joe Biden’s original $106 billion Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan supplemental spending bill to the floor.
Instead, he led the GOP to pass stand-alone legislation supporting Israel with cuts to the recently passed dramatic increase in Internal Revenue Service personnel targeted to pay for the needed help. But the Democrat Senate Majority Leader who pretends to support Israel rejected any Israel aid that was paid for by other budget cuts.
In response, Johnson led the House to pass stand-alone Israel aid funding without any accompanying budget cuts. This was also rejected by Schumer and Biden.
Then Iran attacked Israel, and the need for the additional money and military materiel for our Middle Eastern ally became a crisis.
Speaker Johnson also faced a vote crisis in the House as Democrats had filed something called a discharge petition, which if it attained a majority of signatures of House members, would bring the Biden $106 billion proposal to a vote on the floor without any amendments. Prior to the Iranian attack, Johnson was able to hold off the GOP’s defense wing from signing onto the petition, but afterward, the politics changed and they demanded action or else.
So, Johnson negotiated with the Democrats and came up with a bill that cut $12 billion from Biden’s original request which passed overwhelmingly.
It wasn’t a good bill by any stretch of the imagination, but it was made worse by the need for Johnson to get House Democrats to vote for it. The same Democrats who held leverage due to the threatened discharge petition putting the bad Biden bill on the floor.
The irony of this is that if those House Republicans who opposed the Ukraine aid had negotiated to yes on a much less perfect bill than they would have liked, the inclusion of billions of dollars of humanitarian aid to Gaza, which will undoubtedly fall into Hamas’ hands might have been stopped.
Now, Speaker Johnson faces a growing threat to his ability to retain the speakership. The most likely outcome of Johnson being ousted is the emergence of a Democrat/Republican power sharing House of Representatives.
This unforced error would negate the ability of the GOP to build a 2025 legislative agenda using their control over the House Committees would be lost.
Creating and building support for the big picture solutions the country needs which would have the votes to pass should Republicans increase their majority in the House, gain the majority in the Senate and Donald Trump be re-elected to the presidency is what rightfully frustrated conservative visionaries should demand.
It is my hope and prayer that conservatives in the House, those with whom Americans for Limited Government most closely share the recognition that our nation is in desperate trouble with a need for a significant change of direction, will resist the short-term urge to lash out at Johnson and instead focus upon laying the foundation for the needed changes in 2025.
America is on the brink, but big solutions can be achieved in eight months when a new Congress convenes with a new president.
It can be done, but only if those of us who see the need for that change have the discipline to focus on the prize rather than seeking visceral satisfaction in taking down a Speaker who is relatively powerless due to the circumstances of his ascension and the historically small majority he leads.
Rick Manning is the President of Americans for Limited Government.
