Photographed by Coolcaesar. CC BY-SA 3.0. Unchanged.
A debt ceiling crisis was announced by Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen on Monday, saying the deadline is June 1 for Congress to increase the $31.4 trillion debt ceiling. Suddenly President Biden invited House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) to the White House, while Biden insisted he would not consider any cuts in federal spending.
McCarthy and House Republicans have already rejected Biden’s demand for a debt ceiling increase with no spending reductions. McCarthy said Biden has “refused to do his job” by announcing he would not even discuss the spending limits passed by the House of Representatives.
The lights go out in D.C. unless the GOP-controlled House agrees to keep the money flowing. As long as Biden’s Department of Justice wastes millions on interfering with the next presidential election, the GOP House should decline to increase the debt ceiling.
Many House Republicans who voted for the Republican debt ceiling bill last week have endorsed Donald Trump for reelection in 2024. Yet their bill would continue to fund the political hacks who misuse federal prosecutorial power against Trump.
Federal prosecutors have played video clips of Trump during the multi-million-dollar trials of Trump supporters accused of “parading” in the Capitol on January 6, 2021. As investigative reporter Julie Kelly explains, these trials appear to be dry runs for prosecuting Trump himself, as many Democrats dream about a federal prosecution to derail Trump’s reelection campaign.
The county-level indictment of Trump in Manhattan has remarkably boosted him in the polls, which is the opposite effect for which Democrats hoped. Meanwhile, the county prosecutor in Georgia has put her misuse of power on hold until later this year, disappointing Trump-haters.
Those feeding on federal taxes in D.C. view Donald Trump as a threat to their easy jobs and fat pensions. Their fear is justified, as Trump intends to stop D.C. federal employees from robbing ordinary Americans who struggle to make ends meet throughout the rest of the country.
No Trump supporter has received a fair jury trial in D.C., where the jury pools are filled with people who are stridently opposed to Trump. The 100% rate of jury convictions there of anyone associated with Trump is statistical proof of how unfair that venue is.
Video aired by Tucker Carlson proved that Jacob Chansley, the flamboyantly dressed Trump supporter, was welcomed by Capitol police who escorted him into the Senate chamber. If tried outside of the biased D.C., he would have been acquitted in a heartbeat with that video.
Instead, a D.C. federal judge locked up that entertaining peaceful young man for years. Finally free, Chansley has a new attorney who filed a motion to set aside his patently unjust sentence, a motion he would win if he could bring it in his home state of Arizona or any other reasonable venue.
Yet Congress continues to fund the Trump-hating D.C. prosecutors who take potshots and seek harsh sentences against whomever they dislike. Trump publicly vowed to defund the federal police and that puts him at the top of their “Most Wanted” list.
The Justice Department is also a big promoter of the transgender agenda, which the GOP House should likewise not be funding. Last week the Department’s civil rights lawyers intervened on the side of the ACLU, filing papers seeking to block a good Tennessee law that prohibits transgender mutilation of young people.
With its control of the federal purse strings, the GOP-controlled House should refuse to fund the increasingly partisan actions by the DOJ. The GOP House should say “no” to any increase in the debt ceiling unless it unplugs the abuse of power by federal prosecutors.
Any discussion of holding the line on the debt ceiling brings immediate howls from D.C., falsely asserting that government shutdowns have failed in the past. With that liberal logic, they imply Congress is powerless against a rogue DOJ seeking to indict the leading Republican presidential candidate.
History is no guide here, as never before has it been necessary to shut down the government to protect the People’s right to elect the next president. Previous government shutdowns were for less significant, less understood reasons.
Americans do not want the United States to resemble countries like Turkey, where elections are nominally allowed but the real power is held by the unelected Deep State. Today most political leaders are terrified of retaliation by prosecutors, contrary to our Constitution.
When an electrical appliance is broken and dangerous, the immediate solution is to pull its plug. The Department of Justice is broken, and any revised GOP debt ceiling bill should pull its plug.
The Constitution requires that all revenue-raising bills originate in the House. The Republicans in the House should reject any debt ceiling increase that funds the politicized abuse of power by the DOJ.
John and Andy Schlafly are sons of Phyllis Schlafly (1924-2016) and lead the continuing Phyllis Schlafly Eagles organizations with writing and policy work.
