We all know that the conservative caucus within the Republican party is a vast minority. No longer does the Republican party actually represent true conservative principles. Maybe it never really did.
A prime example is the last stopgap funding bill and the battle within the House of Representatives. Early on in the conversation, only 20-25 GOP members sent the letter to Speaker McCarthy saying they would not support a CR (continuing resolution) at current 2023 levels. And without those few conservative members, the GOP no longer had its majority to pass anything without Democrat support.
Outside of the obvious question of why so few GOP members would make that promise, the next question was “how will Speaker McCarthy respond”? Would he rally the Republicans to truly begin to steer us away from the financial cliff, or would he join forces with the Democrats in a more moderate bill and ignore the conservative “hard liners” (coined by the liberal mainstream media)?
Well we got our answer.
After this weekend’s passing of a CR to keep the government open for another 45 days, we saw a bill that did absolutely nothing to change the direction of our country. Not. One. Change.
The bill is an extension of our current 2023 spending levels, along with billions (as requested by Biden) for emergency response in the nation. The only thing different is the removal of money sent to Ukraine. And because of that one item, Republican leadership praised themselves as the new great negotiators… Go figure.
But it gets worse.
After the vote in the House on Saturday, Speaker McCarthy held a press conference calling himself the great conservative leader that “gets things done”. That’s after accusing conservatives of being “do nothing” conservatives, and claiming the “hard liners” supported open borders and supported Biden immigration policy by failing to pass the first CR presented to them on Friday.
McCarthy continued to claim that as the conservative leader, he has worked to clean up wasteful spending, rid the government of “wokeness”, and did it all without the help of the Democrats.
Now I may be slow to understand sometimes, but if we worked to clean up “wasteful spending”, isn’t the amount we spend supposed to be less?
And if we pushed back against the liberal progressive agendas on budgets, why did only 1 Democrat in the entire House vote against the bill, while 90 GOP members voted against it?
If McCarthy calls that conservatism we need to have a serious look at what conservatism stands for today. And if we want to be part of it we need not be complacent, because to me, conservatism is not complacency. Conservatism is not doing the same thing we said we didn’t like; doing it without the help of those willing to do what it takes to truly make the change, and working with the opposition to give them 99% of what they want while calling our 1% victory a great compromise.
And if we think that’s bad, just wait until our actual budget discussion in November when we get to go through this headache again.