GOP senators make a powerful case against GOP control of the House

GOP senators make a powerful case against GOP control of the House

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.). (J. Scott Applewhite/AP)

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By Greg Sargent

Columnist

Today at 4:22 p.m. EST

House Republicans are furious at their GOP counterparts in the Senate for making a deal with Democrats to avert a debt limit crisis. Those House lawmakers think GOP senators should be making it much harder for Democrats to prevent us from blowing through the debt limit, even though that would mean the United States would default on its debts.

That by itself makes a strong case against letting Republicans gain control of the House, since it means House Republicans actively want to weaponize the threat of economic meltdown, which could lead to catastrophe. And as it happens, two GOP senators have confirmed this very neatly for us.

All this comes in a Politico piece reporting that tensions are high between Republicans in the two chambers, because GOP leaders in the Senate made a deal with Democratic leaders to resolve the latest debt limit standoff.

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Under this complex deal, the Senate will vote to create a mechanism to allow the debt limit to be raised for a temporary period via a simple majority vote. This would mean Republicans couldn’t filibuster it, as they did last time (before caving and letting Democrats temporarily deal with it).

This permits Democrats to raise the debt limit by themselves for a short period, without using the “reconciliation” process to do so. Republicans, who’d previously insisted Democrats must use that process, will now allow Democrats to avoid this, and in exchange, Republicans will not be voting for the debt limit hike themselves, allowing them to attack Democrats for it.

Creating this mechanism would require 60 Senate votes, but Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) insists he’ll find 10 GOP senators to support this move.

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But for House Republicans, this resolution is unforgivable, apparently because it’s not chaotic and destructive enough. They are being egged on by Donald Trump, who has raged at McConnell, arguing that Republicans should use the threat of economic disaster to somehow derail President Biden’s entire agenda, though it’s unclear how this would work.

The result, as Politico reports, is that “tensions are boiling over between the wings of the Republican Party.”

But there’s a more important point here, which was helpfully crystallized by GOP Sen. John Thune (S.D.), a member of the Republican leadership. Here’s the warning he issued to House Republicans, per Politico:

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“I hope they realize this issue has to be dealt with. Because if they get the majority, in January or February of ‘23, they’ll be voting to raise the debt limit,” Thune said in an interview on Tuesday afternoon.

Thune is right: If Republicans get the House majority, the question of whether to raise the debt limit will be in their hands. And there isn’t any reason to be confident they’ll do the right thing.

Indeed, the real upshot of this is that under a GOP-controlled House, chaotic and destructive debt limit brinkmanship is basically guaranteed.

Another GOP senator inadvertently underscored the point. Sen. Mike Rounds (S.D.) told Politico that House Republicans are taking this position because it’s a gimme for them, as they’re in the minority and their opposition won’t have any practical effect. Then he said this:

“It’s an easy vote just to vote no. … There’s nobody back home that thinks you should cooperate, in red states, with Democrats at all. I personally think we have a responsibility for those things we’ve agreed on with the operation of government … that’s not a very popular position to take back home."

You don’t say! Nobody in red states thinks Republicans should cooperate with Democrats at all! There’s another very good reason not to let Republicans anywhere near control of the House.

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We already know GOP control means more debt limit craziness, because we saw a lot of this during the Barack Obama presidency, which at one point resulted in our credit rating getting downgraded.

But as Rounds himself reveals here, GOP control of the House this time could very well mean worse outcomes. As it is, the GOP has radicalized even further during the Trump years — red-state voters don’t want Washington Republicans to cooperate with Democrats at all, Rounds says.

Add in the specter of Trump raging at GOP House members to use their control over the debt limit to destroy the Biden presidency — which will be even worse if Trump himself is running for president — and it’s anybody’s guess what will happen.