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100 Days of MAGA: The House Majority’s Biggest Failures So Far
To secure his gavel, Speaker Kevin McCarthy had to make a series of concessions and promises to the most extreme wing of his House majority. 100 days later, it’s clear that MAGA forces have taken control of the Republican caucus.
From attacking the CFPB to going to bat for Big Oil, the MAGA agenda has proven time and time again that it was written by and for the GOP’s biggest donors and ultra-conservative allies.
As a result, McCarthy’s majority continues to put political stunts above solving the major issues before us – creating real consequences for the American people.
Here are just a few examples of how the MAGA agenda is costing working families:
Protecting Profits over Consumers
Even with 100 days under their belts, the extreme MAGA majority has yet to pass any real legislation to help consumers and working families across the country.
Instead, McCarthy and the MAGA House Financial Services Committee have remained determined to defund important regulators like the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and obstruct any effort from the Biden administration to crack down on predatory lending, junk fees, corporate profiteering, and risky behavior by greedy banks.
At the helm of their anti-consumer antics is Rep. Patrick McHenry — a well-known financial industry ally and critic of consumer protection efforts. As the chair of the HFSC, he’s leading his MAGA colleagues on a Wall Street-funded mission to protect the profits of the financial industry over the savings of working families. Among the worst moments of McHenry and his top lieutenants:
- McHenry immediately came out against the CFPB’s rulemaking against credit card late fees after receiving over $1.1 million from the eight largest credit card issuers and banking industry trade groups that decried the proposed rule.
- Rep. Andy Barr has repeatedly introduced legislation to weaken the CFPB’s funding structure and hamper its ability to punish bad actors that harm consumers.
- Rep. Blaine Luetkemyer claimed ‘junk fees don’t exist’ while trying to defund and defang the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau
Conceding to Conspiracy Theorists
When Republicans took control of the House of Representatives in January, Speaker Kevin McCarthy made key concessions to MAGA House Republicans – granting political control to extremists who have wasted no time pushing their MAGA agenda:
- Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene called for a “national divorce” to split the country “by red states and blue states.”
- Rep. Paul Gosar told right-wing reporters he believed former Rep. Liz Cheney and military leaders should be prosecuted for the January 6th probe and “their heads have to roll.”
- Rep. Barry Loudermilk, who refused the January 6th Committee’s requests to interview, used his position as Chair of the House Administration’s Subcommittee on Oversight to try and exonerate himself.
- Rep. Jim Jordan told Fox News that Republicans have to “limit funds” to the FBI and Department of Justice and that the federal government should “stay out of the election process.”
- Groups interpreted that Rep. Lauren Boebert’s comments appeared to pray for the death of Joe Biden: “Let his days be few and another take his office.”
Checking off Big Oil’s Wishlist
The first 100 days of the MAGA Majority-controlled House Natural Resources Committee has revealed a GOP agenda that consistently prioritizes the interests of wealthy oil executives at the expense of everyday Americans — all while they insist on preserving wasteful tax breaks for billionaires and profiteering corporations.
Even after Big Oil’s raked in a record-breaking $450 billion in profits, the MAGA majority raced to pass H.R.1 – a bill filled with giveaways for the industry, including:
- Slashing the onshore royalty rate.
- Leasing even more public land to extractive industries despite a stockpile of thousands of unused drilling permits.
- Significantly weakening environmental reviews and eliminating venues for local communities to voice opposition to industry projects.
- Prohibiting bans on fracking and ignoring the long track record of this reckless practice linked to ecological destruction and increased childhood cancer rates.
The MAGA majority also shamelessly pushed through the Strategic Production Response Act (SPRA), a dead-end bill meant to obstruct one of President Biden’s primary tools for fighting Big Oil’s price gouging.
Cowering to Conservative Extremists
In the first 100 days of Kevin McCarthy’s speakership, outside conservative groups have shown an incredible amount of influence with the new Republican majority, including:
- Conservative groups like America First Legal, The Heritage Foundation, Judicial Watch, and the Conservative Partnership Institute have worked to exert influence over McCarthy, his deputies, and the Republican conference.
- McCarthy’s long fight for the Speaker’s gavel gave lobbyists and right-wing organizations the opportunity to curry favor with the future Speaker and the different factions of the Republican conference.
- During the speaker fight, the Conservative Partnership Institute allowed the anti-McCarthy Members of the Republican Caucus to meet at their Capitol Hill offices prior to voting.
- The Conservative Partnership Institute has also hosted “bootcamps” dating to 2022 for Republican House staff on how to conduct partisan investigations.
- Following the news of Trump’s indictment, conservative groups like America First Legal, Heritage Foundation, and Judicial Watch issued statements and tweets that were then used as talking points by Members of Congress.
Manufacturing a Debt Crisis
Since day one of their majority, House Republicans have threatened to manufacture a debt default crisis unless they get deep cuts that hurt seniors, students, workers and patients — all while they insist on preserving or even expanding wasteful tax breaks for billionaires and profiteering corporations.
Meanwhile, even as they insist on holding the economy hostage and keeping the nation from paying its bills, they haven’t bothered to produce a true budget proposal of their own. Now, in clear desperation, the Speaker has resorted to preemptively blaming his own top lieutenants and warning his Wall Street donors to brace themselves for a default crisis.
