Kevin McCarthy’s Rise In House GOP Leadership: A Story Of Missteps, Reversals & Out Of Touch Policy Positions
Today, ahead of the House Republican Caucus’ election for the next Speaker of the House, Bridge Project is releasing new research that reveals what’s hidden in Kevin McCarthy’s past. As McCarthy has risen from a member of the California State Assembly to House Republican leadership, his record and rhetoric have changed significantly.
Buried not-so-deep in McCarthy’s short political career are a series of gaffes, missteps, reversals, and policy positions that would sink most politicians. Read the research here, but first, a few highlights:
- McCarthy referred to budget deficits as “cancer” and said said cuts that focused mostly on services to the poor and disabled were akin to a “painful” session of “chemo.”
- In 2011 and 2014, McCarthy voted to raise the debt ceiling. Ahead of the 2014 vote, McCarthy organized a field trip to the Bureau of Public Debt for GOP freshman who promised to never raise the debt ceiling in their campaigns to educate them about the importance of passing the debt ceiling.
- McCarthy sponsored a bill in 2009 proposing that the federal wind Production Tax Credit (PTC) be extended through 2020, arguing it would help cut CO2 emissions and criticizing the “boom-and-bust cycle” of allowing PTCs to expire. In 2012, McCarthy said PTCs “have had their time.”
- In California, McCarthy was an ardent opponent to his party’s stance on abortion – twice trying to replace the state GOP chair with a pro-choice option, and arguing that the budget was “about numbers, not social issues.” Earlier this year, McCarthy said the House should and would defund Planned Parenthood.
- In 2014, McCarthy ignored conservative suggestions to reform the Export-Import Bank and voted to renew its charter and raise the bank’s lending cap.
- After Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger cut vehicle license fees (VLFs), a major source of local government funding, on his first day in office, McCarthy sponsored a piece of legislation to restore the funding to the governments. After the legislation was scored as a tax increase, though, McCarthy dropped his own legislation, which primarily funded health care and elderly care for county and city governments. Officials said the effect would be “extremely devastating,” noting that the funding was “basic core funding” that provided care for hundreds of thousands of children and the elderly.
As McCarthy has risen through the House Republican leadership ranks, he’s run to the right on issue after issue to appease the Tea Party and the GOP’s special interest backers like the Koch brothers. Will McCarthy’s efforts to hide from his past and satisfy House GOP’s right flank be enough to win him the Speaker’s gavel and carry him through the multitude of deadlines Congress faces through the end of the year?