Mostly Because Hardliners Want It Even Worse
McCarthy’s austerity budget has already run into trouble in his own conference. Mainstream conservatives find it too extreme and alienating. The fascist wing doesn’t find it extreme enough. McCarthy wants to vote on it next week— but he doesn’t have the 218 votes he needs to pass it. To serve their wealthy donors, the Republicans want to repeal green energy tax credits and IRS enforcement funding. The extremists in the conference, led by Pennsylvania neo-Nazi Scott Perry, want to just repeal the IRS entirely. The outspoken fascists against the bill, besides Perry, are Matt Gaetz (FL), Bob Good (VA), Anna Paulina Lunatica (FL), Andy Biggs (AZ), Tim Burchett (TN), Eric Burlison (MO) and Dan Bishop (NC).
The GOP is also trying to force through an agreement that no student debt will be forgiven. Good, who hates McCarthy with a passion and wants to see him fail, said “We have got to ensure that our immediate cuts exceed the amount of the debt ceiling increase. If we don’t cut more in the immediacy, then I don’t think there’s any way we can get to 218.” That means Good and 3 other Republicans can derail the whole thing— and are willing to.
Reporting for CNN, Melanie Zanona wrote that McCarthy was pleading with his members during a closed-door meeting Tuesday morning. McCarthy told them a bill passed by the House will help get him to the negotiating table with Biden and that “once he is at the table, he can push for other policy provisions down the road… underscoring the idea that leadership sees the GOP-only plan as purely a way to strengthen their hand at the negotiating table… [Some extremists] have said they won’t back a debt ceiling hike under any circumstances.”
[M]embers of the House [anti-] Freedom Caucus including Reps. Perry, Chip Roy and Andrew Clyde called for more cuts to be included and pushed leadership on why some provisions weren’t included.
It goes to show how hard this is going to be for leaders even though leadership has pitched this as an opportunity to strengthen leverage with the White House.
One of the topics discussed during the GOP conference meeting was why a few items were not included in the debt ceiling framework.
For example, conservatives have been frustrated a measure that would claw back Internal Revenue Service enforcement funds wasn’t included. But a source in the room tells CNN that the reason it isn’t included is because it would be scored by the Congressional Budget Office as expensive and without enforcement money, the CBO would argue less tax revenue would be collected.