Republican Warns Kevin McCarthy Not Doing What He Was 'Hired' to Do

Representative Ralph Norman believes that House Speaker Kevin McCarthy's debt ceiling compromise with Democratic brass will lead to economic conditions that most House Republicans did not support.

"This is a tragedy for the American people," the South Carolina Republican told Newsweek on Friday. "We're going to really get reined in spending next year...Look at what we passed with [217] Republicans versus what was given. Name me one thing that wasn't given away. That's not what we hired McCarthy to do."

In April, House Republicans passed the "Limit, Save, Grow Act of 2023" with the expectation of raising the federal debt limit through March 31, 2024, or until the debt increases by $1.5 trillion. The final party-line vote was 217-215 in favor.

The bill aimed to recoup unspent COVID-19 relief funds totaling less than $80 billion, would have rolled back priorities part of President Joe Biden's Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), sought to cut $80 billion in funding for the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), prevent Biden's student loan $400 billion cancellation policy, and would have repealed some IRA Green tax incentives.

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) found that the GOP-proposed bill would have saved $4.8 trillion through fiscal year 2033, with about $4.2 trillion of policy savings and $543 billion of interest savings. The bill would have also returned discretionary spending to the fiscal year 2022 level in fiscal year 2024, then grow 1 percent annually for a decade.

But the legislation that ultimately passed the House and later the Senate fell well short of many Republican members' expectations, including Norman, due to a smaller number of COVID funds returned and more lenient adjustments to expanded work requirements for programs like Medicaid and Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP).

"What [McCarthy's] got to deal with, and I told this to the caucus, is a lack of trust—and not just with us but the American people. People see this for what it is, look at the bill," Norman said.

Biden and McCarthy also agreed to cut the IRS's budget by up to $21.4 billion over the next three years as part of a deal to raise the debt ceiling, just nine months after Congress approved the president's proposal to boost the IRS' budget by $80 billion amid criticism from Republicans over the hiring of 87,000 new agents.

The bill also rescinds approximately $1.4 billion that will be taken back immediately from unobligated funds provided by the IRA.

Ultimately, more Democrats than Republicans—165 compared to 149—voted for the final piece of legislation.

"That bill that we started off with and the debt bill we ended up with is totally outlandish, is unacceptable and it should not have been agreed to...To have Democrats outnumber Republicans is a telling sign of what was in the bill," Norman said. "If we're going to pass messaging bills—this goes for either party—and ignore the financial disaster that this country is going to face, then they're gonna have to do it on their own.

"In other words, if they're going to keep doing this, then let's just stop everything and admit we're gonna go broke—that we're willing to sacrifice our great military for funding that should go to the military. And it needs to be going to anti-woke things like building ships, like getting our ability to fight China and other countries. It's totally unacceptable."

Republican Majority Leader Steve Scalise implied to Punchbowl News earlier this week that he wasn't entirely privy to the negotiations taking place between McCarthy, Biden and Democratic brass. Former White House adviser Steve Bannon previously told Newsweek that Scalise's comments highlight a fracture within the House GOP.

Asked about Scalise's comments, Norman replied, "Then why did he vote for it?"

"If you weren't involved with it, why did you vote for it?" Norman said. "Seventy-one [House Republicans] did not vote for it. He voted for it.

"Now, I like Steve. I'm not critical of him. I'm just saying, my question to anybody: if you don't know what you're voting on, why did you vote for it?"

There are 53 members of the House Freedom Caucus, some more outspoken than others, who are currently challenging McCarthy in a similar vein to when he was voted into the position in January.

"You tell me how this country can survive with basically having a spending bill that is a joke," Norman said. "I'm livid over the thing and a lot of other people are, too. It's not just Freedom Caucus. You got people that are not in the Freedom Caucus that are livid about what's happening to America.

"Now, we either sit back and pass messaging bills that are only going to be stalled in the Senate, or we do something about it. And I don't know what's gonna happen next week, or the following week. All I know is this: if we don't get our financial house in order and allow this president to balloon the deficit from $30 [trillion] to $42 [trillion] or whatever he's gonna do, we're just not gonna sit back. That's the long and short of it."