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If Congress forces the United States into default, the Freedom Caucus will be the likely culprit. On March 10 it laid out its demands for raising the debt ceiling. All topline discretionary spending (i.e., spending that must be appropriated, excepting emergency spending) must be frozen at current levels, allowing for 1 percent annual growth (i.e., inflation increases that will be far below the annual level of inflation, even if the Fed achieves its target of 2 percent). All major regulations must be approved by Congress. Remove all regulations and subsidies concerning energy (i.e., kill investment in green technologies and drill, baby, drill). Stiffen work requirements for welfare. And lower nondefense discretionary spending to its 2019 level (which means the freeze on top-line discretionary spending starts domestic spending at a lower level than defense spending). There is no chance Biden will agree to this. The White House last week declared the Freedom Caucus proposal a five-alarm fire.

2. The Republican Study Committee. This is the largest of the Five Families, with 173 members. The bad news is theyre almost as nuts as the Freedom Caucus. Like the Freedom Caucus, the RSC was founded in opposition to the Republican leadership, but it was founded way back in 1973, when House Republican leaders could more plausibly be described as moderate accommodationists. Its founder was not a member of Congress but Paul Weyrich, a hard-right nutter with theocratic leanings with a fair claim to being the Johnny Appleseed of the New Right, having also co-founded the Heritage Foundation, the Moral Majority, and the American Legislative Exchange Council. Because of its size and age, the RSC is best compared to the Genovese family, the oldest and largest of New Yorks Five Families, founded in 1931 by Lucky Luciano. The RSCs don is Representative Kevin Hern of Oklahoma, nicknamed McCongressman for his past ownership of several McDonalds franchises. Hern is a fiscal conservative whose Tulsa-based KTAK Corporation received about $1 million in Paycheck Protection Program loans, all of it forgiven, at the start of the coronavirus pandemic.

In a March 15 letter, Hearn demanded a reversal to recent increases in discretionary spending, deregulation of the oil sector, tax cuts, and congressional approval for all major regulations. Unlike the Freedom Caucus, Hern is bucking Trump by demanding cuts in Medicare and Social Security (phrased euphemistically as Codify procedures to ensure the federal government honors critical obligations). McCarthy is likely hoping Hearn will be as hypocritical about a debt-ceiling deal as he was about PPP. He shouldnt count on that.

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They're Not Joking: House Republicans Actually Compare ... - The New Republic