Speaker TK, otherwise known as Speaker Nemo or Speaker Speechless, ranks among the greatest to preside over the House of Representatives in his/her/their short tenure that began on Oct. 3.
That the recent holders of that office include a child molester, the author of a book slapped together for the purpose of skirting honoraria limitations, and, well, Nancy Pelosi unfortunately degrades this laudable feat in the eyes of so many. If his/her/their reign has ended by the time you read this, then know that Speaker TK certainly ranks as the greatest friend to limited government to preside over the House of Representatives in recent history. Nobody sees Speaker TK. They feel his/her/their veto on bad legislation.
READ MORE: Democrats Begin Scapegoating Biden
It looks as though Republicans, after Jim Jordan dropped his bid for speaker, may soon turn to Patrick McHenry.
But why?
Republican Gov. Chris Sununu of New Hampshire calls the inability of Republicans to select a proper speaker “embarrassing.” But advocates of limited government find it empowering, er, emfreedoming — or em-somethingorother. The embarrassment predated October 2023.
An NPR headline reads: “The House can’t work without a speaker. How will it choose McCarthy’s successor?” By “work,” it presumably means you work so that Washington may send you yet another bill to pay. Prior to Speaker TK’s benevolent reign, the House passed so many bills that an already heavily taxed public could not cover the costs to the tune of $34 trillion. During the two-plus weeks of TK’s speakership, Congress has not added a dollar in obligations to the U.S. taxpayer.
The House cannot pass bills without selecting a successor to Kevin McCarthy. The American people needed this break.
Speaker TK infuriates the political class. This explains why, almost every day, the House seeks to replace him/her/they. But every day up until now Nothing beats Something. They hate this. Not only do they fail to commission a painting of TK — a blank canvas would not seem as difficult as the Mona Lisa — to hang as custom dictates in the Speaker’s Lobby, but they hurl such words as “dysfunctional” at the House over which he/she/they presides.
Dysfunction looks more like the tenure of the most-widely praised speaker in recent history. For the fiscal years that resulted from Nancy Pelosi’s eight years holding the gavel, deficits exceeded a trillion dollars in seven. Given that expenditures have exceeded receipts by a trillion dollars or more just eight times in United States history, Pelosi’s near-monopoly on 13-figure deficits strikes as profoundly more dysfunctional than anything Speaker TK did, or more accurately, did not do, in office.
And there’s the rub. The political class judges legislators by how many bills they pass and how many dollars they spend. How many bills they stop and how many dollars they save does not enter into the equation. If it did, we would not owe our creditors more than $100,000 for every man, woman, and child. If it did, the monetization of the debt that created the highest inflation in four decades would not have happened last year. If it did, Washington corruption would cease being so endemic because smaller government necessarily means less profit opportunities for the crooked.
The word dysfunction storms into the conversation in one other situation. Whenever a government shutdown looms — that time when conservatives possess the upper hand but behave as though they must concede numerous points to keep leviathan in business — Democrats, their media allies, and Stockholm Syndrome Republicans lament Washington dysfunction. Like the absence of a speaker, a government shutdown—which, sadly, does not shut down the government but instead merely furloughs so-called nonessential workers whom law dictates the government backpay upon reopening — affects few people’s lives outside of the government. Both situations remind taxpayers how society can and does function minus OSHA inspections or a Congress equipped to pass legislation.
Former UN Ambassador Nikki Haley describes the absence of a speaker as “chaos.” Rep. Austin Scott of Georgia said it “makes us look like a bunch of idiots.”
They are not incompetent. They are incontinent.
Speaker TK may be incompetent. He/she/they remains the furthest thing from incontinent.
And because of this, partisans of limited, constitutional government join in shouting, “Speaker TK for president.”
