America’s Uniparty of Money

Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) speaks during a press conference in the Rayburn Room at the U.S. Capitol in Washington on Oct. 9, 2023. Mandel Ngan/AFP via Getty Images

Commentary

The speaker of the House of Representatives was dethroned by eight Republicans and all of the House Democrats, none of whom like the $550 million that he can funnel to his preferred Republican moderates. These donations influence the legislative process in favor of lobbyists and special interests, according to the former speaker’s detractors.

Republicans are at daggers drawn over alleged failed promises of the former speaker, Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), and a $33 trillion national debt still rising by about $2 trillion per year under his watch.

Funding bills and debt limit increases are now short-term and passed only with extensive brinkmanship that could end in government shutdowns or federal debt defaults. The most recent funding bill, passed on Sept. 30, funded government for only another six weeks, at which point there will likely be more brinkmanship and another risk of shutdown, which according to Republicans of both the moderate and rebel types, has a silver lining. They welcome such opportunities to push the Biden administration and Democratically controlled Senate for more spending cuts.

However, those spending cuts aren’t going fast enough. The eight rebel Republicans, with Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) being the most prominent voice, point to opacity in the legislative process, centralization of power in the presidency and congressional leadership, lobbyist influence, and what they sometimes call the “uniparty” of moderates from both sides of the aisle.

Mr. McCarthy had outsized influence on the Republican side, not only because he was speaker but also because he was a rainmaker and could influence their votes by directing campaign donations.

According to the Financial Times, “In the 2022 election cycle, two McCarthy-aligned groups—the National Republican Congressional Committee and Congressional Leadership Fund—raised a combined $550 [million] on behalf of House Republican candidates, far more than the hauls of previous GOP leaders.”

This gave Mr. McCarthy the ability to centralize power in the House legislative process, which was mated through negotiation with the Biden administration and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.).

The Democratic super PAC for the upcoming Senate race raised $37 million in the first six months of the year. Mr. Schumer’s Leadership PAC raised $41 million from 2017 to 2022.

To maximize control of the legislative process, laws are passed in omnibus form that put everything together and make true deliberative democracy impossible. Even one of the moderate Republicans, Rep. Kelly Armstrong (R-N.D.), complained on Oct. 3 about the “closed door process where 2,000-page bills come out of the Speaker’s office at midnight, and are forced to the floor the next morning.”

He said Mr. McCarthy had “broken that cycle.”

The root cause of the current conflict in the House is over how hard to bargain to decrease government spending and pay down the debt. The Gaetz Eight, encouraged by former President Donald Trump, want to use the hardball tactic of shutting down government temporarily, rather than allow the debt to keep climbing. Moderate Republicans largely reject the shutdown approach. That rejection, before entering negotiations, weakens the Republican negotiating position, according to the Gaetz Eight.

Ironically, the rebels use the same kind of tactics against moderate Republicans who block them from playing hardball with the Democrats. Mr. McCarthy had to endure 15 votes before getting elected speaker, for example. It may be less painful for moderates to step out of the way and let the rebels negotiate with Democrats directly. The upcoming speaker race may reward a pro-Trump candidate, which would amount to that stepping aside. It could also lose moderate Republican donors to the Democrats.

Mr. Gaetz alleges that moderate Republicans, along with moderate Democrats, form a “uniparty.” This uniparty is backed by the money of lobbyists and special interests who, at times, fund the campaigns of both sides. These special interests use their political influence to benefit their profits, such as by allowing large amounts of cheap illegal migrant labor, avoiding tariffs on China, keeping Russian gas flowing, and maintaining high government expenditures from which they benefit as government contractors.

While special interests and their “uniparty” have arguably been dispositive in the legislative process, the Trump presidency and Republican rebels are an indication that the “Grand Old Party” is reinventing itself to accommodate structural changes in the global economic and security environment. As real incomes of the bottom 40 percent in the United States stagnate, average conservative voters are becoming increasingly uneasy with the “moderate” Republicans and Democrats who are presiding over the fall of American power. The two issues are interlinked for them.

Interest paid on the national debt is now more than $700 billion and will rise to as much as $2 trillion annually by 2033. The porous southern border and continued loss of industrial jobs to more trade with China make it increasingly difficult for the bottom 40 percent to find good jobs.

Rep. Bob Good (R-Va.), who was one of the Gaetz Eight, explained his vote against Mr. McCarthy as stemming in part from the latter’s having “negotiated an unlimited increase to the debt ceiling through January of ‘25.” He said the small group of rebels were only asking for a reduction of the deficit this year from $2.2 trillion to $2.1 trillion. They thought Mr. McCarthy would deliver this, but he didn’t.

Neither, Mr. Good said, did Mr. McCarthy bring a balanced budget bill to the floor as promised.

“With the Democrats driving the fiscal bus off the cliff at a hundred miles an hour, we cannot simply contend to be the party that slows it down to 95 just so we can sit in the front seat and wear the captain’s hat,” he said.

The Republican Party is changing. None of the personalities on either side of the debate, which frequently stoops to ad hominem attacks, is perfect. But we can only hope for the future of our nation that they listen to one another and evolve in a manner consistent with the greater good.

Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.