A sign with the name of newly-elected House Speaker Kevin McCarthy is seen outside his suite of offices in the US Capitol in Washington, DC on January 9, 2023. (Photo by Mandel NGAN / AFP)
Washington: Divisive new Speaker Kevin McCarthy faces the first test of his ability to lead the chaotic US House of Representatives on Monday as Republicans seek to approve a rules package determining how they will govern.
An evening vote on the blueprint -- which has caused alarm over its concessions to the Republican right, including a plan to slash defense spending -- comes on the heels of one of the most turbulent weeks ever in the lower chamber of Congress.
Lawmakers almost came to blows in the newly Republican-controlled chamber as McCarthy was forced to go through 15 rounds of voting over four days to overcome a far right blockade to his candidacy.
Democrats complain the deals he cut to swing the vote have severely curtailed the authority of the speaker -- Washington's top legislator -- and ceded an unhealthy amount of power to the Republicans' most extreme lawmakers.
The 55-page rules package lays out Republican priorities for the remainder of Democratic President Joe Biden's term of office and the procedures they will adopt to run the House.
A three-page attachment of side deals that McCarthy reportedly negotiated in secret with the ultra-conservative House Freedom Caucus has rattled Democrats and some Republican moderates.
McCarthy's most controversial concessions reportedly include taking up a 10-year budget that freezes spending at 2022 levels -- which would mean slashed funding for federal agencies -- and a 10 percent decrease in defense spending.
"This has a proposed billions of (dollars) cut to defense, which I think is a horrible idea," Texas Republican Tony Gonzales told CBS on Sunday.
"When you have aggressive Russia and Ukraine, you have a growing threat of China in the Pacific... how am I going to look at our allies in the eye and say, I need you to increase your defense budget, but yet America is going to decrease ours?"
Jim Jordan, a McCarthy ally despite being part of the Freedom Caucus leadership, told Fox News that "everything has to be on the table," including funding for Ukraine's fightback against Russian invasion.
"Frankly, we'd better look at the money we send to Ukraine as well and say, 'How can we best spend the money to protect America?'" Jordan said.
The cuts would delight many fiscal conservatives, except that they are largely symbolic since they would be dead on arrival in the Democratic-controlled Senate.
The upper chamber can write its own version of most House legislation if it has objections, triggering compromise talks between the two sides of Congress.
McCarthy has also reportedly agreed to give the Freedom Caucus outsized sway over the day-to-day handling of legislation, effectively ceding significant leadership powers to a far right fringe.
And he has plans for a new select subcommittee to investigate the "weaponization of government" that will target the Justice Department's ongoing investigations into former president Donald Trump, according to the New York Times.
McCarthy has also reportedly agreed to a reform allowing just one member to call for a vote to oust him, effectively a Freedom Caucus insurance policy that allows right-wingers to hold the speaker's feet to the fire over his other promises.
The former storekeeper can only afford to lose four Republicans at most, assuming every Democrat votes against the package.
Party strategists are confident it will pass, however, since only Gonzales and one other Republican have publicly signaled they have objections.
