Well, Congressman Kean took the easy way out. Faced with the opportunity to take a principled stand on a MAGA Republican bill to raise the debt ceiling designed to hold the country hostage, Kean instead did what he was told and voted for legislation designed to cripple the economy.
Upon joining the Problem Solvers Caucus in March, Kean lamented, “Every day of gridlock in Washington is another day that issues impacting my constituents go unaddressed.” One would think that the gridlock over raising the debt ceiling is exactly the sort of problem that Kean and that Caucus might promise to address. Indeed, on April 19th, the Problem Solvers Caucus made a down payment on that promise. They issued a press release with a plan to suspend the debt ceiling until after a new budget is passed in September. But just seven days later, on April 26th, a partisan debt ceiling bill (H.R. 2811, the Limit, Save, Grow Act of 2023) was passed in the House—and Kean voted for it.
How does Kean reconcile his vote with the framework that the Problem Solvers Caucus agreed upon and announced? He cannot, of course.
Contrary to what Republicans will tell you, the debt ceiling has nothing to do with the budget; it applies to spending already agreed to by Congress and authorized by the President. Interestingly, raising the debt ceiling only seems to be an issue for Republicans when a Democratic President is in the White House—it was raised no fewer than 18 times under Ronald Reagan, and three times under Donald Trump. In fact, the Trump administration is responsible for a quarter of our current national debt—a staggering portion of the total. The Republican Congress was more than happy to enact huge tax cuts for wealthy Americans in 2017, but now that the bill has come due, they’re trying to use it as an excuse to cut benefits.
Speaker McCarthy is trapped by the bargain he made with the Freedom Caucus in order to get the votes he needed to ascend to power. The only way the Freedom gang will approve raising the debt ceiling limit is if McCarthy does their budget bidding, caving to their demand for massive spending cuts. And there’s still no guarantee that they won’t simply force the US into default and spur global economic freefall
How massive are the cuts? H.R. 2811 demands that spending be capped at 2022 levels, with no more than a 1% increase in each succeeding year. Speaker McCarthy has been characteristically vague on the specifics, but if we take as a given that defense spending will be spared, then all other programs could expect 22 percent cuts, deepening with every year. If McCarthy gets his way, we can expect:
30 million fewer veteran outpatient visits;
Layoffs of 108,000 teachers in schools serving low-income and disabled students;
200,000 fewer children with access to Head Start;
180,000 children losing access to child care;
1.7 million women, infants and children losing vital nutrition assistance through the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (SNAP).
Also, all the environmental provisions of the Inflation Reduction Act would be swept away. The crucial increased funding for the IRS would go, too—adding over $100 billion to the national debt—while wealthy donors and corporations retain their tax cuts.
The repercussions are wide-ranging. Think about it. What would a 22 percent cut to the Department of Homeland Security do to the border management and drug interdiction programs Congressman Kean is so excited about?
Since Speaker McCarthy has declined to reveal any specifics of what his proposal would entail, we can be sure that Congressman Kean will deny that any of the projected consequences would come about. Even though many of us didn’t attend elite private schools like Kean did, we are not idiots—we can do the math.
To cave in to the scorched-earth schemes of Speaker McCarthy and the Freedom Caucus would be an act of craven cowardice—and iron-clad proof that Congressman Kean is cut from the same cloth as Marjorie Taylor Greene and her cronies. Would Kean vote in favor of destroying this economy that is working for his NJ7 constituents simply to please his party? We now know the answer.
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