Editorial: McCarthy has a path to ‘end this MAGA Republican nightmare.’ Will he take it?
With the federal government hurtling toward a shutdown over the weekend, Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy is expected to hold a vote Friday on a stopgap spending measure designed to please hard-right conservatives in his conference.
But success is far from guaranteed. And if the measure passes, there is little chance that the Senate would accept it even if there were time to do so.
There is a better way to avert a shutdown: McCarthy should endorse — and welcome Democratic votes for — a bipartisan continuing resolution moving through the Senate. That measure would extend funding of the government through Nov. 17, and also provide about $6 billion in assistance for Ukraine and $6 billion in disaster assistance.
Kevin McCarthy’s rebellious extremists in the House seem to believe they have the leverage to force their far-right budget and policy demands into law. They don’t.
By contrast, the bill McCarthy is expected to place before the House reportedly would not provide aid to Ukraine or funds for disaster relief but would include strict measures to secure the border that would be unlikely to pass the Senate. (The Washington Post reported Thursday that some members of Congress are discussing adding “border security provisions” to a continuing resolution in hopes of winning House Republican support. That change might be acceptable if it involved some additional funding for border security, but not if it included draconian provisions from a bill passed by the House in May such as funding resumption of construction of a border wall and restrictions on asylum.)
McCarthy has said that he doesn’t see support in the House for the Senate bill. But that might change if McCarthy endorsed it. In any event, House members should have the opportunity to vote for it.
On Thursday, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) urged McCarthy to put the Senate bill up for a vote “so we can end this MAGA Republican nightmare. And if you don’t, you own this government shutdown.”
Don’t blame Democrats for tit-for-tat impeachments. It’s Republicans who are normalizing the most extreme check on the presidency.
For McCarthy to follow a bipartisan path to keep the government open likely would alienate the extreme conservatives who have made his speakership such an ordeal — and perhaps prompt a motion to remove the Bakersfield Republican as speaker.
But McCarthy is the speaker of the whole House, not just the Republican conference. And it would not be the first time he has relied on Democratic votes to protect the national interest. In May, Democratic votes were crucial in the passage of a measure to suspend the debt ceiling and forestall a default.
If dissenters continue to stymie his efforts to avoid a government shutdown, the speaker should stop accommodating them and reach out to Democrats to as he did when he secured an agreement with the White House on suspending the debt ceiling.
Bipartisan action by the House to avert a government shutdown wouldn’t end all of the mischief perpetrated by Republicans in that chamber, including their frivolous inquiry into impeaching President Biden. But it would mean that the lives of government workers and those who rely on government services wouldn’t be disrupted.
Republicans in the Senate have schooled McCarthy in how to place the nation first by seeking bipartisan agreement. Will he learn that lesson?
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