Past comments from Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., suggest the conservative may not help the House Republicans on the Rules Committee block Speaker Kevin McCarthy's debt-ceiling compromise with President Joe Biden.
"Over the past 10 years, I've been an advocate of regular order and trying to make things work, try to make this place work right," Massie told Bloomberg months ago when asked if he might use his seat on the House Rules Committee to stop a Biden clean raise of the debt ceiling, as Punchbowl News wrote in analysis Tuesday morning.
"And I would be reluctant to try to use the Rules Committee to achieve a legislative outcome, particularly if it doesn't represent a large majority of our caucus. So I don't ever intend to use my position on there to hold somebody hostage or hold legislation hostage."
Massie's remarks come after tweets suggesting the McCarthy-negotiated deal might not cut spending now, but it puts controls in for the House GOP to control spending down the road.
After a string of in-depth legislative insight, Massie was asked to explain his position to a layman.
"We'll be taking out a second mortgage this week to pay off the credit cards, but it's not until September that we're actually buying the bass boat, the tanning bed, and a big screen TV," Massie tweeted Monday.
His conclusion to his thread before that tweet said leveraging the debt limit to control spending is the last way of myriad missteps.
"Conditioning an increase in the debt limit upon opaquely negotiated concessions from the president is one way to get things done," Massie tweeted. "But we can and should control spending more transparently and precisely using powerful congressional tools such as the upcoming appropriations bills."
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., who has been aligned with McCarthy and supported the debt-limit compromise, shared Massie's insight, too, suggesting Massie is on board with House GOP leadership more than the fiscal conservatives seeking to sink the debt deal.
Greene argued it is better to fight another day.
"Good thread from my friend Thomas Massie," Greene tweeted. "Upcoming appropriation bills is where we can make real changes in what Congress funds and does not fund."
The House Rules Committee has nine GOP members and just three Democrats. Among the most conservative members are Reps. Chip Roy, R-Texas and Ralph Norman, R-S.C., who have already publicly come out against the deal.
Eric Mack ✉
Eric Mack has been a writer and editor at Newsmax since 2016. He is a 1998 Syracuse University journalism graduate and a New York Press Association award-winning writer.
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