What Will the GOP Do if It Wins?

The United States was on the verge of default in 2011 thanks to the radical Tea Party rightist leadership of Jason Chaffetz and the new House Republican majority, which was encouraged by Eric Cantor and Kevin McCarthy. A last-minute agreement reached by President Barack Obama, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, and Speaker John Boehner prevented the catastrophe. A violation of the debt ceiling, which would have resulted in the loss of the US's full faith and credit, would have been disastrous. But Chaffetz was more than happy to make it happen, as did many of his fellow lawmakers. After the incident, Chaffetz declared, "We weren't joking around. We would have removed it.

The brinkmanship and delays already had negative consequences. In the months that followed, the Dow lost 2,000 points, and the federal government's borrowing costs rose by an estimated $18.9 billion over a ten-year period, according to the Bipartisan Policy Center.

Chaffetz has long since left the House, but the Tea Party radicals—who a few years later founded the Freedom Caucus because the Republican Study Committee, the pre-existing right-wing caucus, was not right-wing enough—have moved from the edge to the core of House Republicans. Additionally, Republicans will make the Tea Party movement look like bland moderates if they win a majority in next month's midterm elections. There will be a significant chance of default, as well as protracted interruptions and shutdowns of the government and a constrained administration.

The upcoming election will be the most important of our lifetimes, if there is one tired cliche about elections. This time, there is cause to think it is true. Although the results are still up in the air, one thing is certain: If Republicans take over the House of Representatives, the nation will face a number of fundamental difficulties that are far more severe than any that we have faced in any recent period of partisan gridlock, including a real and present danger of default and a government shutdown. The Republican majority, led by McCarthy, will be either obedient or powerless to avert disaster. It will be more extreme, irresponsible, and eager to use nuclear alternatives to achieve its goals than any of its predecessors have been.

Bad losers, from the November 2022 issue

New Hampshire's primaries have highlighted this danger. Don Bolduc, who was denounced by Republican Governor Chris Sununu as a "conspiracy-theory extreme," won the Republican nomination for the Senate, and Trump supporters Karoline Leavitt and Bob Burns carried the primaries for the two House seats. MAGA radicals were the main winners. These candidates fall outside of any reasonable definition of the mainstream because they openly acknowledge that Trump won in 2020 and advocate for abolishing the FBI. However, they are the norm, not the exception, in this year's Republican primary contests for nomination to important state and federal offices.

Republicans were confident about achieving a broad midterm victory, similar to what they did in 2010, earlier in the year. In recent months, especially in the wake of the Supreme Court's Dobbs decision, those high hopes have been dashed, and several of the extreme contenders now face difficult electoral challenges (for example, the Cook Political Report moved the New Hampshire Senate race and one of those two House races from toss-up to leaning Democrat after the victories of Bolduc and Leavitt.) However, upon redistricting, the chances of Republicans regaining control of the House are still rather good, if only by a small margin, considering the variety of seats that could switch parties.

In terms of the House, FiveThirtyEight has discovered that at least 117 House Republicans currently have at least a 95 percent probability of winning and are outright election sceptics or questioners, which is a good sign of radicalism and a readiness to reject reality in favour of fiction. In response, they are prepared, if not eager, to overthrow governments and institutions in order to achieve their objectives.

The current members of the Freedom Caucus represent a rogues' gallery of bombastic pot-stirrers and insurrectionist enablers, including Scott Perry, Jim Jordan, Matt Gaetz, Paul Gosar, Andy Biggs, Lauren Boebert, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Louie Gohmert, and Mo Brooks. They make up barely a fifth of all House Republicans. They will represent a larger portion of their party in the House in the 118th Congress. Their objectives include investigating Hunter Biden, Anthony Fauci, and others; impeaching Joe Biden, Merrick Garland, Alejandro Mayorkas, and others; crippling the FBI; stopping all future Biden policies; opposing an abortion ban across the country, the repeal of the Affordable Care Act, strict immigration laws, and other causes. Investigations, subpoenas, resolutions of contempt, and impeachment are just a few of the many things that one chamber of Congress can accomplish on its own. Of fact, neither the House nor the Senate are able to oust a government official from office. However, it can use its veto authority to demand reform and obstruct legislation. There is no doubt that any legislative move from the Biden administration will be blocked by the House Republicans. The ways they could use the power of the purse, however, would be worse.

The debt ceiling is where it all begins. Raising the debt ceiling is a dated policy requirement that is only employed by the US and Denmark; failing to do so when the ceiling is reached would result in a default. Congress must take periodic action to raise the debt ceiling in order to preserve the US's full faith and credit. Even while both parties have used the debt ceiling as a political football, they have always managed to pass it, even though we came perilously near during the Obama administration. "I think some of our members may have thought the default issue was a hostage you may take a shot at shooting," McConnell remarked in 2011. The majority of us didn't believe that. We did discover that the prisoner is valuable enough to demand ransom for.

The debt ceiling threat was used by McConnell and Boehner in the House to secure some expenditure reductions. The new MAGA hardline extremists' demands for concessions will not be negotiable. If Republicans prevail this time, there will be a lot more members prepared to push us over the edge, and Speaker McCarthy won't be able or willing to halt their onslaught. Of course, there could be more significant interruptions, such as expensive investigations and government shutdowns. However, the actual risk of default looms biggest. Now what? Something is obvious. If the Republicans win the election in November, the lame-duck session offers a chance to permanently end this menace. The ironically called "McConnell Rule" must be made permanent, maybe through reconciliation, in order to achieve this. The Senate Republican leader changed the rule ten years ago to permit the president to raise the debt ceiling. The law permits Congress to approve a joint resolution prohibiting the action, but it also contains a clause allowing the president to veto it. In this case, the president would only need the backing of one-third of Congress plus one of the two houses to avoid default.

We have entered a new, terrifying age in American politics and administration, one in which radicals seeking big disruption and a revolution will not only be a vociferous minority but may even control a governing body. We cannot take a chance on suffering the full effects of that harsh truth.

Emeritus scholar at the American Enterprise Institute is Norm Ornstein.