Put A Lid On It
"U.S. Capitol building" by Gage Skidmore is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.
With a looming debt ceiling fight, investigations lining up and the Santos saga, the 118th Congress is off to a quite a start.
The Firehose
Most people would prefer not to think about Washington very much. As involved as Americans tend to be in our civic life and our local communities, when it comes to government, especially the federal government, we want it to do its job effectively, efficiently and affordably.
Needless to say, we invariably find ourselves disappointed about the last part. Most likely every citizen of every country with a government is chosen through democratic elections feels the same way.
But for the most part, when things are working well, we can at least go about our daily lives without having to see much of what's happening behind the curtain, so to speak. Unless you're tuned in to C-SPAN on a regular basis, you most likely are content to get the highlights on the news and go back to whatever you were doing.
Not today. We live in a very different environment than a few decades ago, mostly because of the changes in both campaign finance rules and the number of our available media sources. If the squeaky wheel gets the grease, there's more opportunity to be squeaky and greasy than ever.
Enter the House of Representatives in the 118th Congress. As just about everyone knew, Speaker McCarthy had indeed traded plum committee assignments (and a host of other goodies) to some of the more radical members of his conference in exchange for the speaker's gavel. No sooner had he made good on his promises than the firehose opened up.
So far, the lead fireman -- in the Fahrenheit 451 sense -- is Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), who wasted no time at all in making good on his threat to turn the House Oversight Committee into a partisan kangaroo court. Jordan no sooner had his committee's gavel in hand than he sent a letter to the Department of Justice demanding information on several ongoing investigations, some of which involve members of his own committee, and possibly himself.
We don't know yet how the Justice Department will respond, but we do know there are numerous laws, rules, regulations and constitutional restrictions on the executive branch disclosing the information Jordan is looking for, at least as it concerns current investigations. Ironically, a lot of those rules have to do with protecting the rights of potential defendants whose reputations could be unduly harmed should they not be charged, or whose rights to a fair trial could be compromised.
Of course, if your view of rights means you get to do whatever you want and get whatever you demand, such nuanced and adult considerations don't matter very much.
What's worse, this is no doubt just the beginning. Firing up the base is good business in right wing politics. (It's not bad on the left, either, although in all fairness while there is a similarity in kind there's a vast difference in degree.) We are no doubt in for quite a ride over the next couple years.
But while radical politicians getting a lot of face time on cable news and massive exposure on social media is bad enough -- riling up the radical base can, and does, lead to serious trouble -- what's worse is the effect all the noisemaking can have on the ability of the House to do its work. And no sooner had the House been sworn in than the GOP conference made it clear what that effect will be.
Put A Lid On It
On Thursday, Jan. 19, Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen informed Congress the United States had hit the debt limit and would have to resort to extraordinary measures to continue paying the government's bills. The following day, Treasury announced those measures would be able to keep the proverbial balls in the air until the first week of June, at which point the government would basically be out of money and have to default on our debt (among other things).
For people in their right minds, it would be a disaster. There isn't a responsible economist of any theoretical school or political persuasion who doesn't see a global economic crisis of staggering proportions in a debt default by the United States, if for no other reason than the role of the dollar as the world's primary reserve currency.
What's worse, Congress itself is responsible for authorizing the expenditures which the House Republican Conference is now threatening to refuse to pay. In fact, many of the current members of the conference, including most of the key leadership, were in Congress during the Trump Adminstration, when the combination of a $1.8 trillion tax cut and around $3 trillion in new spending padded the national debt.
And not only did the national debt rise by 39 percent over Trump's four years in office (a near-record for the primary debt bested only by Presidents Abraham Lincon and George W. Bush), but over the same period of time Congress authorized a hike in the debt ceiling without a peep -- twice. On one other occasion it was temporarily suspended.
Now, there are serious budgetary issues involved in all this. Our national debt is much too large for comfort, although nothing we can't handle in almost all foreseeable circumstances, at least for the foreseeable future. And the demands of fiscal prudence do require a balanced budget except in times of emergency (and by that I mean real emergencies, not ones created on paper to get around the rules).
There's no denying we don't do a very good job on the fiscal management front. The problem is, Republicans call only for spending cuts without explaining how the economy is supposed to make up for whatever negative fiscal impulse they settle on (other than resorting to trickle-down theory, which was sketched out on a restaurant napkin) while Democrats only look at raising more revenue via higher tax rates without considering how the tax system can be restructured to support capitalism rather than drain it.
And make no mistake, other than in 2011 -- the last time this stunt was attempted -- raising the debt limit was mostly a routine matter. It's been done 78 times since 1960, including 17 times during the Reagan Administration. Using this particular mechanism to try and coerce one side to surrender to the other side's dogma is a relatively new tactic, and one embraced only by the more radical faction in Congress.
This is no way to govern. What makes it especially frustrating is the fact Congress has to pass another budget in September. There is plenty of opportunity this year for both sides to negotiate, and maybe even step out of their respective bubbles and really tackle the true issues. On the Senate side, Minority Leader McConnell (R-Ky.), who no one would accuse of weak partisanship, has signaled the Senate Republican Conference isn't on board with their House colleagues and are ready to sit down at the table and roll up their sleeves.
Which means we don't have to all pile in the clown car and go down this road. Those who wish us to, whatever they may claim, are not acting in our best interest.
Speaking of Acting
Meanwhile, one member of the House GOP Conference is off to nothing short of a rip-roaring start to his first term: Rep. George Santos (R-NY), who has, shall we say, a far more colorful background than seemingly anyone knew.
By now, the endless and relentless series of lies Santos has told are a matter of record. Not only is virtually nothing of what he has publicly said about his life's story true, the lies are so glaringly preposterous as to border on fabulism.
Come to think of it, strike border -- they're just fabulism.
But oddly enough, despite all the calls for Santos to be refused his seat, there's actually no process whereby Congress could do it, even if the new House majority were willing to. And as it is, with such a narrow majority Speaker McCarthy needs every vote he can get), which means even if such a process existed it's unlikely the Republican conference would make use of it (make of that what you will).
Congress did try once to exclude a duly elected member from its ranks at the beginning of a session, and a very powerful and influential member at that. In 1967, Adam Clayton Powell (D-NY) had run afoul of the ethics rules, among other things, and the House voted overwhelmingly to refuse him his seat until an investigation could be conducted. After the investigation concluded, the House voted again, this time deciding, again by an overwhelming margin, to deny him his seat entirely.
Powell sued, and the Supreme Court eventually decided the whole thing was unconstitutional. (In the interim, Powell had won a special election to succeed himself -- by a landslide.) So, even if the Speaker and the rest of the leadership decided Santos is more trouble than he's worth, they're actually kind of stuck with him.
That being said, Speaker McCarthy was under no obligation to hand Santos any committee assignments. But he did, to both the Small Business Committee -- whether persistent fraud qualifies as small business, I'll leave you to decide for yourself -- and the Committee on Science, Space and Technology (it's only a matter of time before he claims he was in the astronaut program).
To be honest, rewarding such an obviously sketchy character with anything other than a ride in the back of a police cruiser is pretty shameful. Again, make of that what you will.
The constituents of New York's 3rd Congressional District, who Santos was elected to represent, are having none of it. They're nothing short of apoplectic at being so thoroughly conned. And to their eternal credit, the Nassau County Republican Party has been adamant Santos should resign, slim majority be damned. Likewise for several members of the New York caucus of the House Republican Conference, none of whom want anything to do with him.
Where this ends up is anyone's guess. Santos is refusing to resign, and may in fact be able to ride out his two years, barring some kind of criminal indictment and conviction. Which could happen. He seemed to come into an awful lot of money in a very short period of time, and no one is entirely sure where it came from.
All the comedy aside, it's actually a serious issue. The glaring hole in our campaign finance system he exploited could be used by much savvier characters; it's possible we'd never know about it. And it may have already happened. A lot.
Stay tuned on this one. It may become much more than a punchline on the late night talk shows as time goes on.
Odds and Ends
There was so much news this week, much of it serious, this edition of MWI Weekly could have been a book. But, as always, we like to look under the hood a little instead of just at the headlines.
One issue coming more and more to the fore is climate change. The more frequent extreme weather events are a pretty clear signal of what we're heading into already, but there's another angle -- actually, several of them -- we should think about as the effects intensify:
Thoughts about Water in a Warming World | by 🌬️Mitch | Jan, 2023 | Medium
The success of Santos numerous other con artists in politics had Umair Haque thinking along his usual gloom and doom lines:
But there's a view of the other side of the coin worh considering, one which sees our current situation as an opportunity for renewal:
America: Devolution, Revolution, or Renewal? ~ The Imaginative Conservative
Which brings up a question of partisanship. It doesn't always manifest itself in ways we'd expect, especially when it comes to the law. That alone may be reason enough for hope (free account required):
How a Progressive Judge Helped Preserve American Pluralism - The Dispatch
Last week we talked about the importance of standing with Ukraine. It's not just about Europe. Our own security depends on us demonstrating our willingness to stand up for our values and our way of life, especially when we consider what we may be facing soon on the other side of the world:
China Undergoing ‘Build-Up in Every Warfare Area,’ Says ONI Commander - USNI News
And finally, lest you think silly red tape is strictly an American issue, other countries are most assuredly not immune:
Swedish govt moves to get rid of permits needed for dancing | AP News
It's good to be free: Men Without Hats - The Safety Dance - YouTube
See you next week.
Kevin J. Rogers is the executive director of the Modern Whig Institute. He can be reached at director@modernwhig.org. ___________________________________________________________
The Modern Whig Institute is a 501(c)(3) civic research and education foundation dedicated to the fundamental American principles of representative government, ordered liberty, capitalism, due process and the rule of law.
To join the Institute, click here.
