House Freedom Caucus Surrenders To Big Government

And, amazingly, a few Freedom Caucus members consider Ryan, a thoroughgoing conservative by any traditional definition, to be dangerously moderate too. It’s being sold by the Speaker of the House as a victory on entitlement reform.

The House Freedom Caucus, the fractious faction of radical right-wingers gerrymandered into a permanent demolition squad, successfully conspired to bring down House Speaker John Boehner and his designated successor Kevin McCarthy.

Rep. Paul Ryan, announced he had chosen a conservative with wide experience advising Republican congressional leaders to serve as his chief of staff.

And if anyone tells you otherwise, just recall for them the testimony of one of Ryan’s own Republican colleagues, Rep. Walter B. Jones of North Carolina, who says he can’t support Ryan because, “If you’ve got problems with a man today, and the man tells you, “Tomorrow, I’ll be a different person” – it doesn’t happen”.

Upton says that a vote by the full House making Ryan the Speaker should be Thursday. “It’s not his [budget] deal, but I do think he needs to be vocal about how he would have done it differently”, said Labrador.

Labrador is directly at odds with the GOP presidential candidate that he endorsed in the 2016 primary, Sen. In other words, the HFC would like Ryan (or a few other theoretical future speaker) to commit to defaulting on the government’s debt in just a couple of weeks unless they can get the Senate Democrats and the White House to negotiate on the conservative wet dream of eviscerating Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, and who knows what else.

“My understanding is that Paul wants to do things completely differently, he wants to do things from the ground up”, said Rep. Matt Salmon (R-Ariz.), another founding member of the Freedom Caucus.

A spokesman for Ryan could not be reached immediately for comment Monday.

But late on Tuesday, the Senator stepped up the pressure, by promising to filibuster the deal that Ryan is allowing to pass through House.

Remarkably, Ryan met these truculent revolutionaries halfway, even though he was already the choice of most House Republicans.

Ryan is clearly in that camp.

The House Freedom Caucus (HFC) represents a group of roughly 40 who lean further to the right than other Republicans within the party.

No wonder why so many movement conservatives are discussing disbandment of the now-useless House Freedom Caucus and about replacing it with an effective alternative, such as the Conservative Opportunity Society (COS), which is led by Rep. Steve King (R-IA).