Monitoring Desk
ISLAMABAD/WASHINGTON: Divisive new Speaker of the USA, Kevin McCarthy, faces a first test of his ability to lead the chaotic US House of Representatives on Monday as Republicans seek to approve the rules package determining how they could govern.
An evening vote on the blueprint, which has caused alarm over its concessions to the Republican right, comes on the heels of one of the most turbulent weeks ever in the lower chamber of USA Congress.
USA lawmakers
Lawmakers almost came to blows in a newly Republican-controlled House as Kevin was forced to go through 15 rounds of voting over four days to overcome a far-right blockade to his candidacy.
According to the AFP, Democrats have complained the deals he cut to swing a vote have severely curtailed the role of speaker Washington’s top legislator and have ceded power to the Republicans’ most extreme lawmakers.
The publicly available 55-page rules package lays out Republican priorities for the remainder of Democratic President Joe Biden’s term and the operating procedures the party could adopt.
One of the headline measures has a panel to investigate the “weaponization of government” that has expected to zero in on the Justice Department’s investigations into former president Donald Trump.
The package allows a single member of either party to force a vote to oust the speaker, an insurance policy that right-wingers could use to hold Kevin’s feet to the fire.
it requires the House to hold votes on a variety of right-wing priorities, such as withdrawing $72 billion in agreed funding for income tax enforcement and a ban on taxpayer-funded abortions.
Kevin can afford to lose four of his lawmakers at most, assuming every Democrat votes against the package, but it has expected to pass since only two Republicans have publicly opposed.
Yet Kevin McCarthy’s most controversial concessions remain clouded in mystery, as they were negotiated off the books with the far-right House Freedom Caucus or aren’t in the official package.
South Carolina congresswoman Nancy Mace said that “We don’t know what (conservatives) got or didn’t get. We haven’t seen it,” one of the two Republican dissenters.
“We don’t have any idea what promise was made and what gentleman’s handshakes were made.”
Kevin McCarthy has agreed, for example, to give the Freedom Caucus outsized sway over the day-to-day handling of legislation, according to USA media, ceding significant leadership powers to the right flank.
Even more controversial has a pledge for talks with conservatives on taking up a ten-year budget that freezes spending at 2022 levels.
This would mean slashed funding for federal agencies and a likely 10% decrease in defence spending.
“This has a proposed billion of (dollars) cut to defense, which I think is a horrible idea,” Texas Republican Tony Gonzales told CBS on Sunday.
