The impossibility of being Kevin McCarthy

The unsolvable problem

(House Speaker Kevin McCarthy)

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You might have forgotten about Kevin McCarthy.

After all, it’s been months since the debacle of how he became House Speaker — after a mere 15(!) votes and seemingly unlimited concessions to the most Trump-y elements within the Republican party.

Well, he’s baaaaaack!

Consider this from CNN on Wednesday:

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and his top allies have reversed course and changed their bill for raising the nation’s borrowing limit – and agreed to make two major changes overnight in a bid to pass the package Wednesday in their standoff with the White House.

It’s not clear if even those changes will yield enough support to pass the bill, as McCarthy can only lose four votes in the narrowly divided House. Yet, after days of proclaiming that the bill was final and that no changes would be made, leadership caved realizing that without some of these tweaks, the bill didn’t have a chance of passing.

There’s nothing like drawing a line in the sand and then, days later, erasing that line. Talk about projecting strength!

What’s even more remarkable is that the changes that McCarthy made to his debt limit bill to appease House Freedom Caucus members might not even work!

“Last-minute changes are no way to run a railroad,” said Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz. I mean….

Now, take a step back and consider what we are talking about here.

1. McCarthy is trying to get a package of spending cuts tied to raising the debt ceiling passed through the Republican House

2. This package is DOA in the Democratic Senate

3. President Biden has made clear he will not, under any circumstances, sign anything but a clean debt ceiling deal — meaning one with nothing, including spending cuts, attached to it.

So the ONLY purpose of passing this bill through the House is to give McCarthy a place from which to bargain with Biden. There’s literally no other goal here.

And yet, in spite of that relatively limited goal, McCarthy can’t get this done in anything close to a smooth or low profile way. He finds himself, again, haggling with the same small group that kept him from being Speaker for 15 votes — looking for ways to make concessions that will appease them just enough to squeak the bill through.

What the McCarthy team clearly are hoping is that the end result — the passage of cuts to go along with the debt ceiling increase — will make people forget about the uncertain path the legislation took.

Yes, legislating is messy, you can hear them say, but McCarthy, in the end, got it done! That’s all that matters!

Before you buy that line, ask yourself this: If you are Joe Biden watching this, are you remotely nervous that McCarthy is coming into these negotiations with a stronger hand than you have? More than you expected him to have?

The answer is obvious.

To his credit, McCarthy and his team have spent the last 100 or so days trying to shore up the obvious damage done to him by the protracted vote for Speaker. They have brought to the floor only heavily partisan measures that have the full support of the Republican conference.

But. what’s now clear is that they were only papering over a hole in their wall. Putting a bandaid on a major wound. Covering up a zit.

Whatever. You get the point. McCarthy’s situation today is no more tenable today than it was in January. He still has an extremely narrow majority and, because of that fact, finds himself in hock to the most extreme elements of his party.

No amount of happy talk or spin changes that fact.

And what’s worse for McCarthy is that there’s no way out. Every single time there is an even mildly contentious piece of legislation, he is going to have to repeat this same cycle: a) take a strong stance b) reverse that stance to get the votes c) declare pyrrhic victory.

It’s an unending loop — and one that it’s hard to see not ending badly for McCarthy sooner rather than later.