Yesterday, eight foolish Republican members of Congress voted with all the Democrats present to remove the House Speaker, Kevin McCarthy (R). None of the reasons given by the eight turncoat Republicans made any sense. They complained that the House Speaker had voted to raise the debt limit on the national debt (which was needed to prevent a government shutdown and America eventually defaulting on its existing debts). But none of the eight ever proposed a balanced budget, so their own positions required increases in the national debt limit. And all eight voted with Democrats against the GOP House Speaker’s plan to reduce most federal spending by eight percent, which failed as a result of their foolish opposition. So their own votes made future increases in the national debt more inevitable.
These foolish Republicans include people who rant about the “deep state,” but they did the bidding of the “deep state,” including Nancy Pelosi and Joe Biden, by voting with Democrats to remove the Republican Speaker! The “deep state” wants the Democrats to win. Every Democratic leader who was present voted to remove Kevin McCarthy as Speaker. These eight fools gave the Democrats the victory they wanted. The vote to remove McCarthy was requested by the scandal-plagued Congressman Matt Gaetz, who has never proposed any meaningful deficit reduction. The vindictive Gaetz was motivated largely by spite.
To avoid the country going broke, Congress needs to reduce the budget deficit — which was a whopping $2.2 trillion in this fiscal year, up 64% from the year before — by enough to keep the national debt from growing faster than the economy. The only way to do that is to get rid of Biden’s hundreds of billions of dollars in new federal spending on things like corporate welfare for woke companies, student loan write-offs, and race-based handouts. Congress also needs to cut things like food stamps, Medicaid, wasteful Pentagon spending, subsidies to progressive interest groups, aid to woke colleges with huge endowments, and agricultural subsidies. Only a tiny fraction of the federal budget is foreign aid. Aid to Ukraine is a tiny share of the federal budget, and helps degrade Russia’s military capacity to wage war on its neighbors (including NATO allies like Finland and the Baltic states), so don’t think getting rid of aid to Ukraine alone can do much to balance the budget. Food stamps cost $127 billion annually, far more than aid to Ukraine costs — indeed, food stamps are most of the Agriculture Department’s budget, and go even to people who aren’t in danger of going hungry. Medicaid costs many times more than aid to Ukraine. Wasteful Pentagon spending consumes billions of dollars annually — perhaps more the cost of aid to Ukraine. If Ukraine falls to Russia, that may embolden Russia to invade Finland, or China may be emboldened to invade Taiwan.
To cut deficit spending, it would also help if Congress would increase the number of IRS auditors to catch tax cheats and raise more tax revenue. Every dollar spent on more IRS enforcement would result in several dollars in increased tax revenue. Unfortunately, McCarthy sought to cut IRS enforcement, because Republicans (including those who voted to remove him) oppose increased funding for the IRS.
Republicans only control the House, not the White House or the Senate. With Democrats controlling two-thirds of the government, there was simply no way for Speaker McCarthy to cancel all of Biden’s harmful programs or get rid of most deficit spending. But at least he tried, and proposed substantial, meaningful cuts in deficit spending. Given what happened to him, who knows if anyone who succeeds him will even try.
