MEMO: MAGA Congress Puts Extremists Ahead of Americans

To: Interested Parties

From: Tony Carrk, Accountable.US Executive Director

Date: September 8, 2023

RE: MAGA Congress Puts Extremists Ahead of Americans

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The MAGA House majority comes back in session next week, threatening to shut down the government if lawmakers do not acquiesce to their extreme demands. Conservatives in the House are treating everyday Americans as pawns in a brazen political game, using the government shutdown as leverage to enact devastating program cuts that would hurt seniors, veterans, and working class families.

By holding the government hostage in a push for radical and unpopular policies, Speaker McCarthy and his MAGA majority are shamefully doing the bidding of powerful conservative groups angling for their pet priorities. The list of dangerous demands raised by House conservatives echoes the same harmful ideas pushed by well-funded right-wing groups with no regard for working-class Americans. It’s clear that McCarthy’s MAGA majority is more interested in answering to special interests than the American people.

As the threat of a disastrous government shutdown looms, Accountable.US is exposing the far-right organizations that House Republican extremists are catering to while throwing the American people under the bus.

• The Heritage Foundation: Heritage, a key conservative think tank known for its extensive relationships with lawmakers and huge influence in Congress, has pushed hard for the right-wing priorities championed by the extreme flank of the MAGA majority currently threatening a government shutdown.

Heritage has called for additional funding to the House Weaponization Subcommittee and has pushed out extremist commentary from voter fraud conspiracist Hans von Spakovsky in regards to so-called weaponization of the Justice Department. Just last week, a Heritage senior fellow praised attempts to “combat wokeness” in the military by holding up hundreds nominations and promotions, an unprecedented campaign which has been widely criticized — most recently by the current Secretaries of the Navy, Air Force, and Army.

Now, the group’s President is publicly leveraging extremists’ efforts (and radical demands) to shut down the government.

• Center for Renewing America: Founded by ex-Trump administration budget official and conservative operative Russ Vought, the Center for Renewing America has pushed for many of the extreme right-wing priorities House Republicans are prioritizing with their brinkmanship.

The Center for Renewing America has waged a war on the FBI, calling for more than $2.5 billion in reductions in funding — a nearly 25% cut from current funding levels. Vought himself helped push for the political-stunt-fueled House Weaponization Subcommittee, and has proposed a budget to cut $9 trillion over the next decade from thousands of domestic programs while encouraging Republicans to attack the “woke bureaucracy.”

Vought previously advocated for freezing military spending, a priority too extreme even for most Republicans. The operative also developed a plan of his own pushing for trillions in cuts to Medicaid, the Affordable Care Act, educational subsidies, and the State and Labor departments. Now he’s demanding Republicans in Congress ditch the “cartel appropriations process.”

• Club for Growth: Club for Growth is a far-right organization backed by right-wing billionaire Richard Uihlein and other conservative megadonors, that props up many of the MAGA Republicans in the House. The group has focused on cutting corporate taxes and deregulating the American economy at the expense of Americans everywhere.

Leaders at the Club for Growth joined other extremist groups in signing onto a letter arguing that “no spending bills should pass Congress” without far-right initiatives, from ending the so-called weaponization of federal law enforcement to stopping a “woke cancer” in the Pentagon.

• Empower Oversight: Empower Oversight is a far-right legal watchdog which has helped drive the list of right-wing priorities fueling the Republicans political games — primarily the supposed politicization of the FBI and Justice Department. Empower Oversight has worked closely with the House Weaponization Subcommittee to facilitate countless Republican investigations, which have produced few conclusions with no evidence.

Learn more about the extremist groups that House Republicans are trying to please with their shutdown threats at MonitoringInfluence.org.