GOP leader McCarthy went to Wall St. to sell his debt ceiling scheme — and it's not going well for him
Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy traveled to Wall Street on Monday, the financial capital of the world, to deliver a speech at the New York Stock Exchange demanding President Joe Biden negotiate with him on the debt ceiling while he unveiled what is being called his latest “scheme” – taking the debt ceiling “hostage,” failing to produce his long overdue budget, and revealing that it will include a requirement that people who use food stamps to survive will to have to work to get them.
It hasn’t been well received.
In fact, most aspects of his speech, and even his choice of venue, have been thoroughly lambasted, discredited, or just mocked over the past 24 hours.
“Kevin McCarthy literally going to the New York Stock Exchange to pitch cutting food stamps for poor people is… well, there’s a reason why people think Kevin is an idiot,” tweeted Vox’s generally reserved Ian Millhiser.
“Today at the NYSE, Speaker McCarthy explained his scheme to slash food aid for low-income Americans to his true constituents: Wall Street and massive corporations who pay little to no taxes,” tweeted the New York Working Families Party.
“Delivering today’s speech threatening our economy at the New York Stock Exchange shows Speaker McCarthy is either in denial about the danger of his threats or intentionally hoping for market turmoil,” tweeted U.S Rep. Brendan Boyle (D-PA). “I’m not sure which is worse.”
It wasn’t just the venue. Far from it.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer on Tuesday railed against McCarthy’s speech: “I’ll be blunt, if Speaker McCarthy continues in this direction, we are headed to default.”
It gets worse for McCarthy.
Indeed, McCarthy’s “argument is out of date,” wrote noted author and professor of history Heather Cox Richardson overnight in her Substack newsletter.
“It’s time to get Americans back to work,” McCarthy on Monday declared, despite unemployment having hit a 54-year low, (and a new historic low for Black unemployment), as the Speaker blamed President Joe Biden, alleging he’s keeping Americans from obtaining employment.
McCarthy repeatedly promised he “will grow the economy,” as he promised to bring jobs back from China, while complaining that “there are more job openings than people who are looking for jobs.”
He touted House Republicans’ HR 1 legislation, the “Lower the Energy Cost Act,” that “makes us less dependent upon China, and it brings jobs back to America that will grow the economy,” he said.
Now, we should presume that McCarthy has an economist on staff, hopefully. But it does not appear so, because what he’s promising doesn’t actually work.
Economists tell us that inflation is still at higher levels because the economy is growing too fast – which is why the Federal Reserve keeps raising interest rates, literally to slow the growth so we don’t explode into a recession. And yet McCarthy wants to grow the economy which in theory will lead to higher inflation.
“I have full confident [sic] that if we limit our federal spending, if we save the taxpayer money,” said Speaker McCarthy, in his unique manner. “If we grow our economy, yes we will end the dependence on China, we will curve [sic] inflation, and we will protect Social Security and Medicare for the next generation.”
“In reality,” Professor Richardson observes, “the inflation that plagued the U.S. as it reopened from the worst days of the Covid-19 pandemic has slowed dramatically, making it clear that the policies of the Biden administration are working. As Jennifer Rubin noted yesterday in the Washington Post, the annual inflation rate for producers is 2.7%—the lowest rate in more than two years—while consumer price increases are at their lowest point since May 2021: 5%. Gasoline prices have dropped 17.4% since the high prices that followed Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The overall declines mark nine months of slowing inflation.”
She goes on to deflate McCarthy’s claims.
“At the same time, labor force participation is at record high levels,” Richardson notes. “Real incomes—that is, incomes after inflation is factored in—have risen 7% for those making $35,000 a year or less and 1.3% across the whole economy. Meanwhile, the deficit has dropped more than $1.7 trillion in two years.”
McCarthy also said he wants to create more job openings, while acknowledging that there aren’t enough people to fill the job openings we currently have.
Which is why, just like Arkansas Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders, and Iowa Republicans gutting child labor laws to allow America’s most vulnerable population to work adult jobs, Speaker McCarthy is looking for anyone (except the people staring him in the face: undocumented immigrants, and migrants from Central America) to fill those jobs.
Instead, McCarthy wants to put Americans to work, Americans who for many reasons need government assistance – food stamps – while ignoring that most families on food stamps already have people working at least one job.
What was the main focus of his speech?
The debt ceiling. And his desire to negotiate over it — or, as many are saying, holding the nation hostage to fringe House Republicans’ demands.
“McCarthy is trying to hide the Republicans’ own bumbling disarray,” tweeted Richardson. “Congress negotiates over the BUDGET, not the debt ceiling, which simply pays for bills already rung up in large part by the Republicans themselves. But they can’t agree on a budget, so are screaming about Biden.”
Pointing to his Morning Memo titled, “This Is The Dumbest Debt Ceiling Fight Ever,” Talking Points Memo executive editor David Kurtz tweeted, “Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) has such a tenuous grip on his own conference that the debt-ceiling hostage-taking he is attempting to pull off has all the hallmarks of the bumbling kidnapping capers you see in the movies.”
Professor Richardson actually had a lot more to say about Speaker McCarthy in her newsletter.
“McCarthy has not offered a budget proposal because the Republican conference cannot agree on one,” she says, noting he is “trying to use the threat of national default to extract the cuts extremist members of his conference want. The Biden administration has made it clear that it will not negotiate over paying the nation’s bills, especially since about a quarter of the debt was accumulated under former president Trump, $2 trillion of it thanks to tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations. In those years, Congress raised the debt ceiling three times. Biden presented his own long, detailed budget, full of his own priorities, as a start to negotiations in March, and he says he is eager to sit down and hammer out the budget once McCarthy produces his own plan. McCarthy is trying to deflect from his inability to do that but is confusing the issue, suggesting that he has the right to negotiate instead over whether or not to pay our bills.”
House Democratic Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries’ spokesperson, Christie Stephenson, on Monday blasted “Speaker McCarthy’s refusal to produce a Republican budget,” and his New York Stock Exchange speech:
“A speech is not a plan. Extreme MAGA Republicans continue to treat the full faith and credit of the United States as a hostage situation while their so-called budget proposal remains in the witness protection program. As always, we will evaluate any legislative text when and if House Republicans can ever agree with themselves about how much they want to devastate American families in order to finance tax cuts for the wealthy, well-off and well-connected.”
AFPAdam Frisch outraises Lauren Boebert ahead of potential 2024 rematch
Republican U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert of Silt has consistently ranked as one of Colorado’s top congressional fundraisers since her election to the 3rd District seat in 2020, raking in small-dollar contributions from a national network of grassroots conservative donors.
But in her bid to win a third term next year, she may have to overcome an even more prolific fundraising effort by her likely Democratic challenger.
Adam Frisch, a former Aspen City Council member who lost to Boebert by just 546 votes in the 2022 election, raised more than $1.7 million in the first quarter of 2023 — more than double the $763,000 raised by Boebert in the same period, according to Federal Election Commission disclosures.
“I am honored to be receiving the support of so many hardworking Colorado families,” Frisch said in a statement Monday. “Boebert’s fundraising numbers reaffirm that her days in Congress are numbered because she continues to ignore the needs of her district and instead prioritizes being a leader of the angertainment industry.”
If Boebert continues to trail Frisch in fundraising, it would be the first time the far-right representative has been at a financial disadvantage since her successful 2020 primary challenge against five-term GOP Rep. Scott Tipton. Boebert unseated Tipton despite raising just $133,256 to Tipton’s $973,739 in the first half of 2020.
In her bid for reelection last year, Boebert raised nearly $8 million, by far the highest total of any of Colorado’s U.S. House candidates. Frisch, who narrowly won a three-way Democratic primary with 42% of the vote, raised $4.4 million from donors and supplemented that with over $2.2 million in personal loans to his campaign.
Boebert was widely projected to win reelection by a comfortable margin in 2022, and neither Republicans nor Democrats spent heavily through super PACs to influence the 3rd District race. But after Frisch’s unexpectedly strong performance in a race that triggered Colorado’s first congressional recount in 20 years, the stage has been set for a potential blockbuster rematch next year.
Earlier this month, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee included the 3rd District, which encompasses most of Colorado’s Western Slope as well as Pueblo County, on its list of 2024 targets. A poll released by a progressive group last week showed Frisch and Boebert tied at 45% support among likely voters.
In what promises to be an unusually high-profile congressional race, both Boebert and Frisch continue to rely on contributions from out-of-state donors. About 63% of Boebert’s itemized donations in the first quarter came from contributors outside of Colorado; for Frisch, the figure was 57%.
In other U.S. House districts, Democratic Rep. Yadira Caraveo of Thornton, who was narrowly elected over Republican state Sen. Barbara Kirkmeyer as the first representative of Colorado’s new 8th District last year, reported raising $339,307 for her reelection, while Democratic Rep. Brittany Pettersen of Arvada, who was elected in the 7th District to succeed longtime former Rep. Ed Perlmutter, reporting raising $218,108. Neither candidate has yet drawn a Republican challenger.
https://coloradonewsline.com/briefs/frisch-outraises-boebert-2024-rematch/
