Kevin McCarthy’s Success Comes at a Price
Republican unity on the debt-limit measure bodes poorly for any policy compromises in Washington.
More conflict to come.
Photographer: Valerie Plesch/Bloomberg
Speaker Kevin McCarthy scored a big win with the passage of a Republican debt-limit proposal stocked with spending cuts and other rollbacks to Democratic priorities. While the measure has no chance of winning support of Senate Democrats or President Joe Biden, it sets up a period of fierce confrontation between the two parties.
Until this week, we appeared headed for a different outcome. After the chaos of the speaker election in January, it seemed possible that House Republicans, given their narrow House majority, would realize that anything that would eventually pass into law would need a bipartisan coalition of the center against the ideological fringes.