The nice people at The Dispatch pointed out this post to Twitter by Andy Biggs, a congressman from Arizona:

"We cannot raise the debt ceiling. Democrats have carelessly spent our taxpayer money and devalued our currency. They've made their bed, so they must lie in it."

Biggs is a bit of a leader in the House. He can certainly gum up the works in trying to get a change in the debt ceiling passed. That could be a problem.

Who are the members of the House Rules Committee? After all, they control the business on the floor. Members of the committee include:

  • Tom Cole (R-OK), Chair
  • Michael Burgess (R-TX)
  • Guy Reschenthaler (R-PA)
  • Michelle Fischbach (R-MN)
  • Thomas Massie (R-KY)
  • Ralph Norman (R-SC)
  • Chip Roy (R-TX)
  • Erin Houchin (R-IN)
  • Nick Langworthy (R-NY)
  • Jim McGovern (D-MA), Ranking Member
  • Mary Gay Scanlon (D-PA)
  • Joe Neguse (D-CO)
  • Teresa Leger Fernandez (D-NM)

Only two out of the nine majority party members of the Rules Committee can be said to be anywhere near centrist/mainstream. Those would be Michelle Fischbach and Nick Langworthy. The other seven are all varying degrees of extreme at this point. Any debt deal essentially needs the agreement of those nine Republicans or it will never make it to the floor of the House unless it goes through the convoluted time-consuming procedure of a discharge petition.

Assuming Kevin McCarthy can hold his caucus together he can only lose four votes. I’ve got at least eight who want to go down the “Thelma and Louise” route to varying extents. There are probably more but with as fractious and bumptious as the caucus appears to be frankly I don’t see a positive way forward to get a deal. Six Republicans quietly signing a discharge petition in conjunction with all the Democrats would work but would also end six political careers…