As we learned earlier this week, Team GOP punted to the Democrats on spending priorities when Mitch McConnell and crew helped pass and $854 billion spending bill that abandoned GOP promises to repeal Obamacare, defund Planned Parenthood, and rein in spending.
While clearly a breach of years of campaign promises to conservatives, this #MiniBusBetrayal by the GOP proved beyond any reasonable doubt that the former party of Reagan is irreparably broken and is no longer a home for conservatives and our values. As heartbreaking as this reality can be, it’s made worse when the few voices in Washington that once represented our hope of changing the GOP join in the betrayal under the banner of Trumpservatism.
Days before the atrocious spending bill was passed in the Senate, there were rumblings about how House conservatives were growing increasingly frustrated over being shut out of the spending debate. Meanwhile, leaders of the House Freedom Caucus (HFC) whined about how their hands were tied and threatened to withhold their votes on spending unless their priorities were addressed.
While the use of the word priorities sounds like they’re looking out for conservative interests, in reality, it’s politispeak for give me something that will help me keep my job. According to North Carolina Rep. Mark Walker, he and other members of the so-called conservative Republican Study Committee (RSC) will sign any spending bill you put in front of them so long as you give them a token policy win to take back home.
So, why are the HFC and RSC acting like their working for conservatives when they clearly aren’t? Because that’s how the game is played when you’re a player on Team GOP in the Age of Trump.
The cave by these conservative groups has been obvious for some time now. For example, in Oct. 2017 when the House passed a $4 trillion Democrat-friendly budget funding Obama’s priorities for Planned Parenthood, Obamacare, and DACA, the HFC provided the votes necessary for it to pass.
When asked about the trillions of dollars in new deficit spending and how it would be spent, Chairman Mark Meadows defended HFC’s support of the outrageous budget by passing the buck, saying that it was “the only thing I can get through the GOP-led Senate” and that it was more important to “get things done” than to hold out for “politics-as-usual.”
Yet, politics as usual is exactly what Meadows was shoveling, and he did it again a few months later when Trump threatened to shut down the government unless the debt ceiling was raised. Meadows feigned his outrage over government’s excessive spending but then did nothing to address the debt ceiling issue.
America is facing another betrayal by Trump and the GOP with the latest spending bill. And right on cue, Mark Meadows and the rest of the faux conservatives in Washington are playing the politics-as-usual game as they stomp their feet in protest about broken promises yet do nothing to stop it.
The only thing so-called conservatives in Washington want to conserve is their jobs, just like everyone else in Washington.
David Leach is the owner of The Strident Conservative. His politically incorrect and always “right” columns are also featured on NOQReport.com.
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