149 house republicans voted for it. I’m sure it would have been higher if Biden was an R instead of a D. The debt limit was lifted 3 times under Trump without any cuts to spending. There is long history of republicans only willing and getting cuts to spending when they don’t hold the WH. When they have control of the house, senate and the WH it’s Christmas for the wealthy with always more tax cuts without the cuts to cover them. The blame doesn’t just fall on them but they have always been part of the problem in my lifetime. Instead of sides we need more responsible elected officials effectively looking at the budget with both increases on revenues and cuts on spending are used. And it shouldn’t be all unloaded on today’s youth and future generations to pay for our failures.
In my conservative circles, Andrew McCarthy is regarded as a RINO, and was regarded as such long before he became House Speaker.
On his show, Tucker Carlson used to routinely mock McCarthy for his swampy tendencies, sharing an apartment with a lobbyist, and other shady connections. There was a l;ot of opposition within the Republican party to him even becoming speaker. I think he only succeeded because no one else wanted the job. He's another Paul Ryan or John Boehner, a RINO through and through. McCarthy also sided against House candidates endorsed by Trump in the 2022 mid-term election, depriving them of GOP House funding, and in cases, spending more to support their primary opponents and to fund negative ads against them.
That said, for those who defend him, they argue that he cut the best deal possible, while Republicans only narrowly hold power over one of the 3 branches of power in government. I remain less than convinced that he made any kind of a "good deal".
Rep. Claudia Tenney of New York made the most credible defense of McCarthy, that the deal gives Republicans further control over 12 more separate votes that can stop budget spending. But I'll believe that when I see those 12 restriction votes actually happen, and not until then.
As I've said often, there are only about 15 or 20% of Republicans in the House or Senate who actually take a stand for Republican-conservative principles, and they are undermined by the RINOs who flip sides at the last minute and vote with the Democrats for trillions in spending. It is not "Republican spending" it is Republican defectors, who vote in "bipartisanship" for DEMOCRAT spending. You always bypass that absolute fact. Republicans don't champion the deficit spending, a small sliver of them cross over and vote with the Democrats to let it happen.
And again, I don't fully understand why.
Are these RINO Republicans getting kickbacks and payoffs for defecting and voting with the Democrats?
Or as I speculated before, is this a continuation of "Filegate" in the Clinton years, where Democrats keep files on Republicans, to blackmail them into supporting Democrat legislation, or at least passively not opposing it?
