Here we go…
The stopgap bill was signed into law to spare the American people from a government shutdown. Some members of Congress can’t see past their selfishness to embrace the positive aspects. Instead, the infighting began. Matt Gaetz successfully filed his motion to vacate, and Kevin McCarthy has been ousted. Now what? The Republican House was already chaotic. Now, they don’t even have a speaker, though CNN reported that Patrick McHenry-who is a top ally of McCarthy-was named interim speaker. If the Republican party wasn’t already dead, this war will finish the job.
While Gaetz claimed that they “couldn’t trust” McCarthy, other Republicans were not happy with the move, resulting in even more chaos. The American people need to watch this very carefully. These people aren’t in office for us. Gaetz didn’t like that McCarthy worked with Democrats to pass the stopgap bill; he would rather the government shut down before that happened. Is this someone who cares about his constituents?
Jason Smith (R-MO), who appeared on “Sunday Morning Futures” with Maria Bartiromo, told Bartiromo: “Basically, Gaetz is going to work with Nancy Pelosi, Hakeem Jeffries, and the rest of the Democrats to remove the Republican speaker…. If you remove a Republican speaker, that then puts the Democrats in power, these investigations will be done and stalled. This is unacceptable of Matt Gaetz.” If Smith is referring to the impeachment investigation, that investigation was dead before it started because they have no evidence. They are pushing things that make no sense that do nothing more than waste taxpayer money. Yes, they are allocated certain funds for investigations, but those funds should be spent on meaningful investigations, not “tit-for-tat” for what’s happening to Donald Trump.
Gaetz ended up getting what he wanted, but at what cost? Republicans have no leader. An “interim” speaker doesn’t count. The funny part of this whole thing is that while Republicans complained that McCarthy worked with Democrats, Gaetz and his crew needed Democrats to pass the resolution. Following the ouster, Gaetz spoke from the Capitol steps: “It’s the benefit of the country that we have a better speaker of the House than Kevin McCarthy. We should elect a speaker who’s better.” The problem is they had no one in line, and they will go back and repeat what they went through to elect McCarthy. Yeah, the country really benefits from all this turmoil and chaos.
This will come back to haunt the Republican party. Tim Burchett (R-TN) said that almost immediately after the vote, he received angry phone calls from supporters, letting him know they would not be supporting him in the future. Good. He claims that he “worries more about our country.” No Republicans worry about the country, or they would learn to work with each other and members of other parties.
Members of the House need to work together for the good of the American people. Republicans refuse to work with Democrats, and now, they can’t even work with each other. The stopgap had to be passed for the good of the country. Anyone in Congress who can’t see that doesn’t belong in Congress.
Shirley is a former entertainment writer and has worked in the legal field for over 25 years