After the House voted on Wednesday to raise the national debt ceiling and fend off the nation’s first-ever fiscal default, some Republicans pushed back on the idea that House Speaker Kevin McCarthy sold out to the left.
The Washington Times, for example, noted that the “rare and striking” bipartisan vote in favor of the debt package was the result of a “virtuoso performance” by McCarthy, who “delivered Republican support despite vehement opposition from members of the conservative Freedom Caucus and isolated threats to carry out a vote of no confidence against him.”
Rep. Patrick McHenry, North Carolina Republican, told the Times, “This is not a bunch of liberal policies sprinkled in with conservative policy. This is fundamentally a right-of-center bill attached to a debt ceiling increase.”
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But Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida, one of those Freedom Caucus members, was unimpressed by the outcome.
In response to the House vote, in which he was one of 71 Republicans to reject Mccarthy’s deal with President Joe Biden, Gaetz noted that fiscal hawks are an “endangered species” in Washington.
“After tonight, only four Republicans will remain in Congress who have never voted to raise the Debt Limit. I’m proud to be among them,” Gaetz tweeted on Wednesday.
“Though the Fiscal Hawk is an increasingly endangered species in Washington, we find ourselves hunted nonetheless. The Biden-McCarthy Debt Limit deal papers over America’s problems with unknowable sums of debt, gaslighting reckless inflation-inducing spending for years.”
“As Democrats correctly note, it locks in the radical policy choices they have made. Those choices should be reversed, not cast in cement by Republicans,” Gaetz continued.
“The purported policy ‘wins’ are largely cosmetic budget gimmicks or waivable at Biden’s whims. As lawmakers have taken the 72 hours to read this bill, it is no surprise that Republicans moved away from the proposal as Democrats have come to love it evermore.”
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As one example of that, Gaetz noted that as the “Establishment GOP” celebrated so-called “work requirements” for food-stamp benefits, the mandates came at the expense of alleged “reforms” that make the program “more costly for taxpayers and more accessible to the homeless.”
“We can and must do better,” said Gaetz.
According to Gaetz, the other three Republicans who have rejected increases on the debt ceiling are Reps. Ken Buck of Colorado, Andy Biggs of Arizona, and Tim Burchett of Tennessee.
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