A really strange thing happened to House Republicans Wednesday: The Freedom Caucus apparently conceded their favorite weapon—government shutdowns. Just like that. Rep. Scott Perry of Pennsylvania, who chairs the far-right caucus, announced at a press conference that they would accept the top-line budget of $1.59 trillion as agreed to by President Joe Biden and former Speaker Kevin McCarthy in May.
“It's still too much for many of us but was agreed to around Memorial Day was this [Fiscal Responsibility Act] number of $1.59 trillion,” Perry said. “Most of the House voted for it. Most of the Senate voted for it. That's where we have to be, don't be adding stuff on to it.”
Just to be clear, Perry is referring to the same agreement that ostensibly kicked off the whole movement to oust McCarthy from the speaker’s chair. It was supposedly all about spending and his refusal to rein it in. When McCarthy passed a continuing resolution with Democrats’ help in September, one that didn’t cut programs by nearly one-third, as Republicans had demanded, that was supposedly the last straw. Now they’re just giving in?
Reporters had a hard time believing it, too. In follow-up questioning, Perry reiterated it: “$1.59 trillion is too expensive for many of us, but we realize $1.47 [trillion] is not going to happen. … The House overwhelmingly supported $1.59 and so did the Senate.” That’s a Freedom Caucus leader accepting reality—a minor miracle.
It’s also an about-face for a Freedom Caucus that, pre-Thanksgiving, was still demanding major cuts and shutting down the House in protest when they didn’t get them, by blocking procedural votes.
As if that weren’t enough, House Speaker Mike Johnson—who swore to Fox News a few weeks ago that he wouldn’t go along with another short-term funding bill—told Senate Republicans Wednesday that if the House and Senate can’t come to an agreement on their appropriations bills, the House would agree to extending current funding until next September.
Of course, that doesn’t mean there won’t be future shutdown threats, because it’s the Freedom Caucus we’re talking about. Any of its individual members is capable of doing anything, and it only takes a handful of them banding together to blow the place up. But it is a very big concession on spending from both the chief maniac and from Johnson. That the concession is also a way to rub McCarthy’s nose in his humiliation again was probably just a fun bonus for everyone.
Republished with permission from Daily Kos.
