WASHINGTON — Rep. Tony Gonzales (R-Texas) has made life even harder for House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.).
Gonzales said he would oppose a broader deal McCarthy wants to make with President Joe Biden over federal spending and the debt ceiling if the House of Representatives votes on immigration restrictions that Gonzales says are downright unchristian.
“Bring out ungodly anti-immigrant bills and I’m NO to the debt ceiling,” Gonzales said on Twitter.
With Republicans holding a narrow five-seat majority in the House of Representatives, it only takes a handful of members to change a voting result — meaning Gonzales has only made it harder for McCarthy to twist Biden’s arm.
If Biden doesn’t agree to spending cuts, McCarthy said he would resist increasing the Treasury Department’s ability to borrow money, without which the federal government would default on its debt sometime this summer, potentially causing a banking crisis and recession.
This week in a letter to Biden, McCarthy offered some general ideas what kind of policy changes he wants to see for, including spending cuts and “work requirements” for unspecified federal programs. The letter also mentioned measures “to protect our border from the flow of deadly fentanyl, which kills 300 Americans a day.”
McCarthy had already planned in January for the House of Representatives to pass border security legislation, including a bill by Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas), an influential member of the conservative House Freedom Caucus. Roy’s legislation would bar asylum seekers from entering the country if the Department of Homeland Security cannot arrest or deport them. But McCarthy abandoned plans for a plenary vote amid disagreements between hardliners like Roy and moderates like Gonzales.
Gonzales has opposed the Roy Act from the start, previously calling it “un-American.” Republicans have said they could win him overbut his new threat to vote against a potentially unrelated debt ceiling suggests they’re not having much luck.
“This bill in particular is dead,” Gonzales said Sunday on Face the Nation. “There’s no way it’s going to hit the ground. I will do everything in my power to prevent this because people are dying in my district. And we need real solutions, not political rhetoric.”
Rep. Tom Emmer (R-Minn.), a member of McCarthy’s executive team, told HuffPost that Republicans would handle things.
“People are allowed to express their feelings whether you agree with them or not,” Emmer said. “But there is an ongoing discussion which I think will be resolved.”
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Source : news.yahoo.com