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This month we witnessed a dramatic, historical first: A Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives was removed from that position by a vote from members of that body. U.S. congressman Matt Gaetz was able to gather enough Republicans dissatisfied with the leadership of then-Speaker Kevin McCarthy to send him packing.
What was the last straw? According to Gaetz, it was McCarthy’s secret deal with President Joe Biden and the Democrats to bring up another huge funding package for Ukraine separately if they agreed to support a bill to keep the government open without Ukraine money in it.
Gaetz and his allies were angry that they were kept in the dark about the deal and in the end it only took eight Republican rebels to end McCarthy’s eight months in the Chair.
Several thoughtful members, including my friend Thomas Massie, made convincing arguments that Republicans removing the Speaker would do little to nothing when looking at the bigger picture of a record U.S. debt, a continuously growing budget deficit, and runaway inflation. It would also, he argued, do little to fix a broken House of Representatives where Members are more interested in showboating than taking a needed chainsaw to the massive yearly Omnibus spending bill that has taken the place of individual funding bills for each part of the Federal government.
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When I was in the House we mostly worked under what was called “regular order,” where each individual appropriations bill was brought to the floor and debated sometimes for several days – with unlimited amendments – before they held a vote. With regular order there was at least a chance that Members and staff could actually read the bills and try to make changes. Multi-thousand-page omnibus bills brought to the floor at the last minute with a demand that they be passed immediately is part of the reason we are up to our eyeballs in debt. They can – and do – sneak everything into them!
Even with the deserved criticism, however, there is still something satisfying about seeing such a shake-up over the issue of foreign interventionism. After a year and a half and more than $100 billion sent by Biden’s neocons for the proxy war with Russia in Ukraine, finally some Members are starting to wake up and say “no” to demands for even more. These wars instigated by neocons from both parties always end in disaster, but not until they produce much suffering in the countries they claim to want to liberate. They also further punish the middle and working class while enriching the wealthy and well-connected in the military-industrial complex. The cost of this latest war will be hidden in the cruelest tax – inflation – which disproportionately hurts the poor.
Will a new Speaker of the House solve our problems? No. Our biggest problem is our financial and moral bankruptcy, which has been brewing for over 100 years since the creation of the Fed and the rise of the Progressive era. But finally we see members responding to rising anger among the electorate over the financing of another forever war – this time with a nuclear superpower! Finally we see members saying “enough” to demands for even more money for the US empire. It’s a good start and we should do all we can to encourage it.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR …
Ron Paul is a former U.S. Congressman from Texas and the leader of the pro-liberty, pro-free market movement in the United States. His weekly column – reprinted with permission – can be found here.
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4 comments
If only America could be more like Russia, huh Ron?
His son and his fellow MAGA republicans are trying their hardest to make that happen.
These low tier Russian disinfo blogs run by Qpublicans are hilarious.
Gotta have an obligatory wRONg Paul brain fart in text form.
The self inflicted damage is done – we are but merely a once- great republic in decline, which in my view started on 9/11 and proceeded with the Red & Blue war hawks’ massive overkill, in both blood and treasure, in the war on terror in Afghanistan, Iraq, & Pakistan. Then followed the Great Recession (which was largely caused by the banking systems’ reaction to federal gov’t housing policy to force loans to people who didn’t have the proper credit to buy a house) and the TARP bailout of the banks, unions, and major automakers, followed by the market subsidies of Obamacare (which transferred 15% of our economy to federal control and transitioned the debt acceleration from mere subsonic to afterburner) with the final coupe-de-gras with the combined 10 trillion spent by Trump and Biden over largely the hyper-overreactive response to Covid-19 and the so-called Green New Deal. Throughout that period of time, there are billions upon billions that we borrowed to simply give away to other countries. At this point, it’s the brutal reality of math on an amount of debt so massive that its interest rate service is about to exceed the actual amount collected annually in taxes in the entire country. The only reason we have not collapsed by now is because we have the world’s reserve currency, and so much of the western world in Europe is actually worse off. Financially, the US is the least dirty shirt in the pile of dirty clothes; the thinnist fat chick in the bar to take home when the lights come on. But that’s about it. Any Republican or Democrat who tries to tell you our financial house is fine, the debt is not a problem, we can afford another war, another new welfare program, another million illegal immigrants is just either a complete fool or a knowing liar who is just trying to keep denying reality to keep things propped up as long as possible while some elites can loot the treasury before fleeing the country, much like Saddam Hussein’s sons when we toppled the Iraqi government. There will be a terrible collapse, particularly in the long-blue democrat states and major cities which are steeped in debt and have junk bond ratings, while the red states that have been financially responsible and strong (and not all red states have those credentials, mind you) will be better off, but not without pain. We as a people don’t have the sterner “stuff” in us any more to allow the steep, drastic cuts in federal spending and the affiliated benefits and services that could have, maybe, about a 10-15% chance of staving off a major disaster. We don’t want to face the fact that when Social Security was created, the average American’s lifespan was about 60 for men, and 64 for women – and it was never intended to be something that people lived off of for 15+ years – it was meant to keep people off the streets and digging out of trash cans to eat during the last 3-5 years of their life, if they were fortunate enough to live long enough to collect. Red and Blue, over the course of about 20 years, we essentially either actively voted for this descending stairs of decline or passively, like a bunch of clueless “Normie Norms” allowed this to happen right in front of us- and that includes the rigid Trumpers who still stand by a man who presided over the largest single year increase in the national debt in all of American history. Face it, own it.