'Faulty' GOP spending cuts agreement 'doesn’t exist' now that McCarthy is out: report

According to an exclusive Sunday, October 8 report from Politico, the deep appropriations cuts that stem from agreement ex-House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) made with hard-right House Republicans are now nonexistent, according to House Rules Chair Tom Cole (R-OK).

Politico notes, "When McCarthy struck the spending deal in June, he was under assault from conservatives angered by the less severe spending caps he had accepted as part of a bipartisan bill negotiated last spring with the White House to avert default."

According to the report, "The sudden about-face stunned many in both parties, and unlike the spending caps in the debt ceiling bill, the new spending targets were never really tested by a full vote in the House. Some details of the deal remain murky even to Republicans on the House Appropriations Committee, and the panel has struggled since to comply and still find support for its bills on the floor."

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Cole told Politico the "agreement was faulty from the beginning. It's changed over time, and now in a sense, it doesn’t exist at all because McCarthy isn't the speaker anymore. So we're not really bound by this agreement now. That will be an interesting thing the new speaker will have to hash out."

He added, "Look at the members who brought down the farm bill and they are some of our very best members. They felt like they had been misled, were very disappointed and they voted accordingly. … This had to do with the confusion around this very poorly written agreement that has never been public."

Politico reports:

Cole's comments are striking because of his stature in the House, seen again last week when as Rules chair, he managed the historic debate in opposition to those wanting to oust McCarthy. The Oklahoma Republican is also vice chair of the funding panel, the second-highest-ranking appropriations post. The fact that he should speak out so directly now could embolden GOP centrists to do the same in the party fight now over who will be the next speaker.

The news outlet adds, "Whoever becomes the next speaker, they will need Cole’s help in coping with the next spending crisis when government funding is slated to expire out Nov. 17."

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Politico's full report is available at this link.