Kevin McCarthy’s lose-lose predicament 

With just two weeks until congressional infighting causes the federal government to shut down, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) is in an unenviable predicament of his own making. 

He must either risk his speaker’s gavel by sending a spending bill to President Biden’s desk that would keep the government open, or stay in power by surrendering to the demands of the far-right members of his caucus, who favor a shutdown over a budget compromise with Democrats.  

The practical and political consequences of McCarthy choosing the latter path are self-evident. Aside from the havoc a shutdown would wreck on federal agencies, our national security and our economy, the blame for the fiasco would fall squarely on Republicans’ shoulders ahead of a critical election year at a time when the GOP would benefit from keeping the focus on President Biden’s sagging approval numbers, the weakening economy, persistently high inflation and the crisis at the southern border. 

To be sure though, McCarthy is the author of his own lose-lose situation. In his quest to secure the speakership in January, he caved to the far-right’s demands by agreeing to a rule that would allow just one member to begin a motion to remove him as Speaker. Now, those members are demanding draconian spending cuts that have no chance of being signed into law by a Democratic president in exchange for keeping the federal government open. 

Rep. Bob Good (R-Va.), a Freedom Caucus member and McCarthy critic, articulated his group’s position this week. “The Speaker faces two choices. [He] stares down the Senate, stares down the White House, forces them to cave … or he can choose to make a deal with Democrats.” If McCarthy did the latter, Good added, “I don’t think that’s a sustainable thing for him as Speaker.” 

In many ways, the current situation McCarthy is in mirrors the one he faced in June, when a fight over the U.S. debt ceiling ended in an 11th-hour deal, avoiding an unprecedented national default. Like then, McCarthy is struggling to corral a fractured caucus, knowing he can lose no more than four votes, and that just one vote could remove him as Speaker.  

But unlike in June, McCarthy cannot afford to bypass every demand of the Freedom Caucus and strike a deal with President Biden. Far-right Republicans had only some of their initial requests granted in the final June debt deal, and have made clear that this time, it’s all or nothing. The Freedom Caucus has even demonstrated a willingness to hold up GOP red meat spending items, including Pentagon funding and homeland security.  

Even the launch of an official impeachment inquiry into President Biden did little to mollify Freedom Caucus members, as a party meeting descended into McCarthy thrashing the far-right in a profanity-laced tirade on Thursday. The House Speaker told his detractors, “If you think you scare me because you want to file a motion to vacate, move the f-ing motion.”

Notably, McCarthy’s efforts to appease the far-right have isolated him from his Senate colleagues. Senate Republicans, many of whom have outwardly denounced impeaching President Biden, have also aligned with Senate Democrats to advance a spending bill. Thirty-seven Senate Republicans voted with Democrats on a bill that included $100 billion more in spending than current proposals in the House and omitted many of the culture-war provisions that House conservatives are demanding, such as anti-abortion provisions for the military. 

Rather than allowing a handful of extremists to determine his priorities as Speaker, McCarthy would be wise to follow the lead of Senate Republicans, despite the potential peril it could inflict on his speakership.  

The speaker would also do well to consider how government shutdowns have played out historically. In 1995-1996, during Bill Clinton’s presidency, House Republicans forced what was the longest shutdown in government history at the time over a budget dispute. It lasted 21 days. The shutdown ended because GOP solidarity eroded — much like it already has today — and polls at the time showed that, in the end, the public put the blame on the House speaker and his party. 

Of course, at the time, House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) did not face the same threat to his Speaker’s gavel that McCarthy is facing now.  

Still, the shutdown of 1995-1996 should serve as a cautionary tale for Kevin McCarthy, who can either risk his own position to save his party and his country or save himself at the expense of the two. The right choice — in our opinion — couldn’t be clearer. 

Douglas E. Schoen is a political consultant who served as an adviser to President Clinton and to the 2020 presidential campaign of Michael Bloomberg. His new book is “The End of Democracy? Russia and China on the Rise and America in Retreat.” Saul Mangel is a senior strategist at Schoen Cooperman Research.