The MAGA Majority: 100 Days of Wrong Priorities and Political Stunts

To: Interested Parties

From: Tony Carrk, Accountable.US Executive Director

Date: April 13, 2023

Re: The MAGA Majority: 100 Days of Wrong Priorities and Political Stunts 

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This week marks 100 days since Republicans took control of the House of Representatives. Since February, Accountable.US has explained how MAGA forces have taken over the Republican caucus and are pursuing the wrong priorities for the American people. They continue to put political stunts above solving the major issues before us. 

The MAGA-controlled House has proven incapable of governing. Their dithering and political brinkmanship have real consequences for the American people: drastic cuts, or defaulting on the nation’s debt. When they do pass legislation, it typically benefits their big-donors, special interests, or MAGA-backed outside groups.

Here are three examples of the wrong priorities of the MAGA-controlled House in the past 100 days.

MAGA MEMBERS CALLING THE SHOTS, PUTTING POLITICAL STUNTS OVER THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 

To secure his gavel, Speaker Kevin McCarthy had to make a series of concessions and promises to the extreme MAGA faction of the House Republican caucus. That is why we call this Congress the MAGA Majority. These members are the ones calling the shots. Kevin McCarthy is their leader and enabler.

This MAGA Majority has elevated voices like Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, who spent a lot of time these past three months calling for a “national divorce.” It’s empowered election deniers who wish to whitewash and rewrite history about the January 6th Insurrection. Many of these people hold positions on powerful committees like the House Oversight and Judiciary.

Instead of focusing on fixing the problems the American people face, these MAGA members have decided to use their powerful positions to pursue partisan political stunts intended to damage President Biden. Groups with MAGA ties, like the Conservative Partnership Institute, have been leading trainings on how best to do that. Their oversight hearings have given a platform to conspiracy theorists, election deniers, and racists. When faced with the slightest scrutiny, their arguments crumble, which only underscores the lack of credibility and seriousness these members have.

MANUFACTURING A DEFAULT CRISIS TO GET DRASTIC BUDGET CUTS 

MAGA Republicans have insisted on using defaulting on our debt, a dangerous act never done before in our nation’s history, as leverage to exact devastating cuts to programs that would hurt seniors, veterans, and middle class families. However, Speaker McCarthy’s inability to lead means MAGA Republicans are calling for cuts but are unwilling, or unable, to outline them and show they would pass the House. 

While they have not been specific, MAGA Republicans have generally shown what programs they want to cut, including: Medicaid, a program that provides health services to women, children and seniors; student debt relief; public safety; and law enforcement.

And if their demands are not met, defaulting on our debt would have extremely severe consequences. Medicare payments for seniors would be missed. Seniors would not receive their Social Security. Veterans would not get their VA benefits. Not to mention 6 million people losing their jobs, unemployment skyrocketing to 7 percent, and the markets dropping. Experts have warned our economy could collapse.

MAGA Republicans have manufactured this default crisis and are trying to hold the economy and the needs of American people hostage to get out of it.

PROTECTING SPECIAL INTERESTS OVER THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 

House Republicans have used their majority to further their economic philosophy of more tax giveaways to the wealthy and special interests and siding with big corporations over the American people, or what we call MAGA Economics. The leaders of the House Financial Services Committee, including its chair Rep. Patrick McHenry, have received tens of thousands of dollars from banks, predatory lenders, and other financial interests they are supposed to regulate. It is no wonder that the committee under McHenry has been leading the fight against the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and opposes the Biden administration’s crack down on junk fees: those abusive, often-hidden fees and penalties disproportionately impacting low-income Americans. One Republican Financial Committee member, Blaine Luetkemeyer, even said, “junk fees don’t exist.”  

The MAGA Majority has not only done the big banks’ bidding. Big Oil executives have many reasons to celebrate.  Even after Big Oil reported a record-breaking $450 billion in profits, the House passed a bill, H.R.1, a Big Oil executive’s wishlist. The bill would cut the offshore oil drilling rate and make even more of our public lands available for their private profit. All of this would not address at all the underlying driver of high energy costs: Big Oil’s greed.

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