Summary
The House GOP’s new rules package aims to weaken minority party influence while advancing a pro-corporate agenda.
Key provisions include shielding the House speaker from bipartisan accountability and fast-tracking 12 GOP bills without allowing amendments, including measures to sanction the International Criminal Court (ICC) and protect fracking.
Democrats, led by Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.), criticized the package for ignoring economic and social issues like inflation and housing while prioritizing tax cuts for billionaires.
Republicans plan to offset these costs by slashing social programs, sparking warnings of further congressional dysfunction.
This, exactly. Most voters are poorer today than they were four years ago. Biden would have been considered a decent or even excellent president in the eighties or nineties, but his slow and steady policies were not up to the task of solving the damage being inflicted on people by late stage capitalism.
And in a completely tone-deaf move Harris refused to criticize this approach and promised to be four more years of the same thing. To voters, that read as “Four more years of your budget getting tighter and tighter.” Against that, anything became a good option. Trump is the equivalent of solving a problem by throwing a molotov at it, sure, but from most people’s point of view, at least it’s a throw of the dice. They figure a chance of things getting better is more than no chance.
The same thing is most likely going to happen up here in Canada soon. If we end up with Pollievre it won’t be because anyone likes him, but because no one likes the alternatives.