Funding of the federal government is set to expire at midnight on Sunday, Oct. 1. The shutdown would be the U.S. government’s first since early 2019, when a 34-day shutdown ended with then-President Trump backing away from his demand to fund a border wall. Before then, the most recent shutdowns were in 2013, 1995, and 1990.
If the rarity of a shutdown doesn’t garner the attention it should, the consequences must. During a shutdown, members of the military aren’t paid, air travel is disrupted, and non-essential federal functions cease. Social Security, Medicare, SNAP, Food and Drug Administration inspections, and small business loans are affected. Millions of federal employees won’t receive paychecks.
All this is bad enough. What’s worse is that we could see this coming. In fact, it seemed destined to happen ever since January 7, 2023. That, to jog one’s memory, was the day McCarthy became Speaker of the House, succeeding on the 15th vote of what was the longest Speaker election since the Civil War.
McCarthy won that battle by making a number of huge concessions with hard-right members of his caucus. Chief among them was the “motion to vacate,” allowing any member, at any time, to call for McCarthy’s ouster and initiate a new vote for speaker.
Even after all that, who was the final holdout? Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL), the same man who currently leads the government into a self-inflicted catastrophe.
WITH less than a week left, McCarthy now finds himself back where he started. He’s given away all he can to a group of far-right Republicans who “just want to burn the whole place down,” as McCarthy said last week.
The only person this might be news to is McCarthy. And the longer he tries to reason with firebrands like Gaetz, Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, Colorado’s Lauren Boebert and their entourage, the more he fails to grasp the world he created.
The far-right McCarthy emboldened doesn’t mind shutting down a federal government it sees as their enemy. Gaetz and his allies have no interest in building coalitions or passing legislation. In McCarthy’s House, a handful of members hold the rest at their mercy. In McCarthy’s House, a handful of members hold the rest at their mercy.
McCarthy quickly needs to remember the first rule of politics: majority rules. And right now, the only majorities to be found require compromise. He can either make a deal with moderate House Democrats or take up what the Senate sends his way.
Regardless, one gets the feeling McCarthy’s days are numbered. The eventual end of a shutdown — because even a shutdown has to end — will likely lead to a call for his ouster.
That may please Speaker McCarthy’s cardiologist. But then the question: Who would possibly want the job? Who in their right mind would attempt to appease the unappeasable? Without changes to the speaker’s role, it seems a fool’s errand.
— Tim Stauffer
