Our recent book is titled Divided We Stand: The 2020 Elections and American Politics. Among other things, it discusses the state of the parties. The state of the GOP is not good.
President Biden and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy announced Saturday night that they had reached a deal to raise the debt ceiling and avert a catastrophic federal default with a bit over a week to go before the deadline.
Afterwards, a quick consensus formed among much of the right and left: Republicans got blanked.
The agreement would temporarily freeze a portion of non-defense spending, while temporarily tightening the food stamp program’s work requirements for childless adults, and enacting modest changes to Temporary Assistance for Needy Families.
The early details prompted furious reactions from members of the hard-right House Freedom Caucus, who’d hoped to extract vastly more sweeping budget cuts and changes to the federal safety net in return for hiking the borrowing limit.
“This ‘deal’ is insanity,” tweeted South Carolina Rep. Ralph Norman. “A $4T debt ceiling increase with virtually no cuts is not what we agreed to.” North Carolina Rep. Dan Bishop tweeted a vomiting emoji after a GOP conference call, and complained about “RINOs congratulating McCarthy for getting almost zippo.”
