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How Far Will McCarthy Go to Satisfy Ultra-Conservative Republicans?
(Bloomberg) -- Speaker Kevin McCarthy must choose in the coming weeks how far to go to satisfy Republican hardliners, a dilemma that will impact a potential impeachment effort against President Joe Biden, the supply lines of the Ukrainian counteroffensive and more than 4 million federal workers.
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The 58-year-old veteran politician, barely eight months into his dream job and under constant threat of ouster from dissident ultra-conservatives, is caught between the demands of his party’s right wing and the potential disruption and political damage of a government shutdown as soon as Oct. 1.
The Republican leader has launched a formal impeachment inquiry into Biden, who has been the target of multiple Republican investigations, including those into the business dealings of his son, Hunter Biden.
McCarthy appears to be avoiding — at least initially — a floor vote to open the inquiry. Such a vote would pose a serious risk to swing-district House Republicans, 18 of whom represent areas Biden won in the 2020 election.
Read More: McCarthy Launches Impeachment Probe Into President Joe Biden
For now, he is trying to delay a reckoning on the government funding clash and pursue a middle course. He has floated a temporary spending measure to keep the government operating into November, leaving out $24 billion in requested Ukraine assistance. A shutdown could hinge on that aid.
McCarthy is the key player in reaching a spending deal to avoid a shutdown.
Yet he’s also now “at his highest level of risk,” Mick Mulvaney, a former House Republican and White House chief of staff told Bloomberg Radio’s “Sound On.” The speaker “might have to go through at least a little bit of a shutdown if for no other reason to establish some bona fides with the conservative wing.”
McCarthy expressed confidence Monday he would achieve conservative priorities without a shutdown. “We are going to get our work done,” he told reporters at the Capitol.
A government shutdown would cut off pay to federal workers and military personnel, halt many government services and heighten US political dysfunction.
A Californian who projects unremitting optimism, McCarthy enters the shutdown drama with a record of reaching compromise in Washington’s last major fiscal showdown, averting a US default in June that risked roiling global financial markets. Yet the trade-offs he made in that deal angered the ultra-conservatives in his slim majority.
While most forecasters see little risk of a recession this fall, a shutdown would hit the economy at a vulnerable moment. Job growth cooled over the summer, autoworkers could go on strike, and consumer spending is expected to weaken as student loan payments resume in October.
Conservatives consider the House’s power over annual government funding their greatest leverage with Democrat Joe Biden in the White House. They have demanded deep cuts in spending, an end to “woke” diversity policies in the military, stronger border enforcement and reductions or a halt to Ukraine aid.
“If we can’t check that executive branch, then why the hell are we even here?” Chip Roy, a Texas Republican and member of the ultra-conservative House Freedom Caucus told reporters Monday. “I expect to get something. Stand up and fight.”
The drumbeat makes swing-district Republicans uneasy.
“That kind of rhetoric is good for lining up the crowds” in hardliners’ hometowns, Republican David Joyce of Ohio said Monday on CNN. Elsewhere, however, a shutdown “doesn’t make any sense.”
McCarthy has indicated he would try to broaden the appeal of a temporary measure funding the government into November by combining it with politically important disaster aid, including relief for victims of Hawaii wildfires and this month’s Florida hurricane.
Ukraine Aid Hits Trouble as McCarthy Weighs Tie to Border
He is considering tying Ukraine aid to tough border policies anathema to most Democrats — though a House leadership official said even that trial balloon is provoking fierce opposition.
Yet the strategy likely amounts to window dressing.
Senate Republicans are largely lined up with Democrats in backing Ukraine war aid and stopgap funding without major concessions. Whatever legislation the House passes, the Senate is clearly preparing to send back a measure stripped of conservative priorities as the deadline nears, said Representative Stephen Womack of Arkansas, a senior Republican on the House Appropriations Committee.
Given hardliners’ demands, Womack said, that is a “recipe for a shutdown.”
Representative Dusty Johnson of South Dakota said such a Senate stopgap without some border policy changes wouldn’t make it through the House. “This isn’t rocket science,” he said.
It will be up to McCarthy to find a way out. And harder still to sell it to his party.
“Threading that needle is not easy,” Womack said. “You almost have to be half magician.
(Updates with news that McCarthy launched impeachment probe)
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