The compliments to Kevin were short-lived.

Last spring, Speaker of the House of Representatives Kevin McCarthy rightly received support from people across the political spectrum, including myself, for reaching a compromise with President Biden to raise the country’s debt limit and thereby avoid economic armageddon. But that, of course, meant that the uncompromising far-right flank of his Republican faction, which has the power to hold McCarthy hostage to his demands, was a popular uprising.

The troublemakers need not have feared.

The proverbial ink on the debt deal was barely dry before McCarthy started backing down. Amazingly, he assured the crazy House Freedom Caucus that spending levels in the dozens of bills funding the administration would be less than what he just agreed to in the debt limit deal with Biden and senators from both parties. This kind of double play is what happens when a leader feels obligated to anti-government zealots to keep the job he’s longed for.

McCarthy also expressed his openness to letting the culture warriors use their favored provisions against abortion rights, transgender children and more nonstarters in the Senate for the spending bills. Oh, and he promised to continue Biden’s allegations and evidence

To be determined

. But when the House returns from summer vacation next week, it has 11 business days to pass the funding bills and resolve bill differences with the Senate and the President before October 1. 1, the beginning of the next fiscal year.

Otherwise the government will disappear.

Even those of us who typically disagree with Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell must admit that he has best described what Congress will face this month, once again thanks to Republicans in the House of Representatives. Honestly, it’s a pretty big mess, he said at home in Kentucky last week.

McConnell made it clear he wasn’t happy that McCarthy had effectively waived the deal they’d all agreed to three months earlier, a deal that should have eased budgeting and removed any risk of closure.

And yet McConnell, Biden and Senate Majority Leader New York Democratic Senator Chuck Schumer have no choice but to strike a new deal with McCarthy that will likely last until December, when Congress

usual line drawing and

Deadline-breaking drama eventually stumbles upon legislators’ holiday plans.

To buy that time, McCarthy pitched to Schumer the idea that Congress pass a resolution extending state funding for a few months. Complicating the rather large mess further are the separate controversial proposals for emergency funding for Ukraine, the border crisis and states affected by natural disasters, along with the mandatory bills for agriculture and air transport.

These are all pressing matters, but it is not what is central to the Republicans in the House of Representatives. That would be an attempt to impeach Biden’s impeachment theater, as one congressman calls it. The show goes on despite the fact that there is no evidence for it

Bidens

do wrong

by Biden

after months of scrutiny, no majority in the House to actually pass impeachment articles and no chance the Senate would convict even if impeached

N

solution.

But here’s what’s out there: a threat to McCarthy’s beloved job. As Florida Man Rep. Matt Gaetz this week told a conservative radio host, if Kevin McCarthy gets in our way, he may not have the job for long. To which the host replied: Matt, I’m so glad to hear you say that.

So McCarthy has adapted the Roman emperor’s palliative remedy for the potentially mutinous mob: give the people bread and circuses. And McCarthy is using the impeachment circus to lure insurgent Republicans into supporting government funding as well.

If we stop, the entire government closes investigations and everything else, McCarthy said on Fox News last week.

During the upcoming spending debates, expect plenty of Republican condemnations of the Democrats’ debauchery. And if you do, keep in mind Nikki Haley’s blow during the recent Republican presidential debate against her rivals, who blamed the Democrats for the national debt: the truth is, Biden didn’t do this to us. Our Republicans did this to us too.

Or listen to Republican Senator Mitt Romney, who said at home in a TV interview in Salt Lake City last week, when President Trump was president, you didn’t hear from us Republicans about how we overspended and had trillions of dollars in deficits. Quiet as little lambs! Now President Biden is president. Oh, we’re going to shut down the government if we don’t rein in spending.

He added: A little less hypocrisy would be a good thing. Better yet: a lot less.

The coming weeks will be an interesting test for McCarthy and the Republican majority in the House of Representatives, New York Representative Hakeem Jeffries, the leader of the Democratic minority in the House of Representatives, told The Times at a rally on Tuesday. Hi

at least seems to be expected

a short shutdown, thanks to the uncompromising demands of what he and other Democrats have called the extreme MAGA Republicans.

Given all the examples over the past thirty years of Republicans paying a political price for shutting down government and disrupting public services, benefits, payrolls, projects, and much more, you’d think no one would be stupid enough to openly provoke closure. Consider, however, that an unusually large number of Republicans in the House of Representatives, 52%, have come to Congress only in the last four years; they are inexperienced. And they are generally more radical than their predecessors.

That’s who and what McCarthy is dealing with. It’s almost enough to feel sorry for him. Except that he has become one of them.

There are no compliments for that.

@jackiekcalmes