They held their breath until they turned blue and nothing happened
House conservatives are furious about the government funding bill negotiated by Speaker Mike Johnson that sailed through Congress last week, calling it a betrayal of Republican promises to cut spending and reshape the federal budget.
But in a twist, this time they aren’t threatening to overthrow the man in charge of cutting those funding deals with a Democratic-led Senate and White House, even as they’ve begun to paint him as a functionary for status quo policies.
House Freedom Caucus Chair Bob Good, R-Va., has blasted the first of two funding packages and said he doesn’t expect a better deal in the second one, which must pass by March 22 to avoid a partial government shutdown.
“Because the speaker doesn’t want to do that. He just wants to pass what the Senate wants so that we avoid any conflict,” Good told NBC News, saying that Johnson, R-La., wants to “join hands with the Dems” to “increase spending” and yield “no policy wins.”
“The speaker is unwilling to tell the Senate no,” he said. “It doesn’t matter what we offer.”
But Good didn’t have a solution when asked what the right flank can do about it, saying: “I’m open to ideas.”
When asked pointedly if that includes a motion to vacate the speaker’s chair, Good, one of eight Republicans who used the tool to oust former Speaker Kevin McCarthy, ended the conversation. “Thank you,” he replied.
They figured out that the only power they really have to force the entire government to capitulate to their extreme demands is to get rid of the Speaker and that didn’t really change anything. It took this for them to realize that they are just a [T]rump group with one crude tool and nobody really gives a damn about their hysterics, not even their fellow Republicans.
Now they’re just whining:
Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, a Freedom Caucus member and right-wing thought leader on fiscal policy, said the newly passed government funding bill was “more of the same games, a lot of smoke and mirrors.” And he predicted the next package of bills will similarly be “garbage.”
“It is business as usual,” Roy said, despite some “modest strides” toward a more normal process in developing the bills.
But when asked if he blames Johnson, Roy said, “I think the speaker reflects a conference that likes to give lip service to fiscal restraint and refuses to act on it. That’s what I think.”
As for a motion to vacate? Roy isn’t going there: “I think it’s a tool that should always be on the table, as an historical matter. I think it should be sparingly used. … I think we need to just keep working forward to try to get somewhere.”
Rep. Troy Nehls, R-Texas, an ardent Donald Trump ally who wore a T-shirt with the former president’s mug shot to the State of the Union address, was more blunt about why Johnson’s job isn’t in danger: Nobody wants it.
“Let’s just go down to Disney and see if Daffy Duck or maybe Goofy would want the job,” Nehls said. “Maybe Mickey! Maybe Mickey would want the job.”
Gee, I wonder why no one would want the job? Does anyone really want to be Marjorie Taylor Greene’s whipping boy?
The good news is that they got their scalp so they can be proud that they destroyed Kevin McCarthy, the most prodigious fundraiser in the caucus. Good work folks. Excellent.