Three weeks in, the House GOP caucus finally got its act together and elected Congressman Mike Johnson from Louisiana as Speaker of the House on Wednesday. The day prior, Congressman Tom Emmer of Minnesota, Majority Whip, saw his candidacy derailed by social media posts from former president Donald Trump. Emmer voted to certify the 2020 election results, making a permanent enemy of the loser of that election.
Johnson is a reliable Trump company man and apparently the moderate majority of the caucus had had enough and just voted for him already to get this nightmare over with after rejecting hardliner Jim Jordan in a previous vote.
This three-week freeze on Congressional business could not have come at a worse time. The Hamas attack on Israel has seen growing aggression from other Iranian-backed militias in the region (can we just say "Iran" at this point?), additional aid needs to be voted upon for Ukraine, and the "Five Eyes" intelligence cooperative (comprised of the U.S., Canada, Britain, Australia and New Zealand) just issued a detailed report naming Chinese industrial espionage as the top intelligence threat globally.
And the country will run out of money again next month. The federal debt poses its largest-ever threat to national security, topping $33 trillion this month. And we have no budget for this fiscal year, which began more than three weeks ago.
A protracted ground war in Europe instigated by the former Soviet Union. A likely ground war in Israel. China quietly amassing all the intellectual property it can by nefarious means. Our federal debt reaching nearly $100,000 per person with no plan to slow spending, much less pay any of it off.
I am genuinely frightened for the future of our nation, more so than ever before. And I lived a mile from the Pentagon on 9/11.
One thing I believe: prior administrations have failed us. The prospect of the major party nominees for the 2024 presidential elections being the 45th and 46th presidents absolutely terrifies me.
Trump's foreign policy was a complete disaster and Biden's attempt to repair it has been too tepid and slow. Trump's love affair with Vladimir Putin helped embolden that dictator and position him to invade Ukraine. Biden has been too hesitant to get Ukraine the munitions and weapons it needs, ensuring a long and painful war, even though the hollowness of the Russian forces and weaponry has been well exposed. By dragging our feet, Russia has had time to broker arms deals with Iran and keep trolling the streets and prisons for more military recruits.
Both administrations spent recklessly before, during and after the pandemic, ignoring the inevitable economic pressures that would force interest rates higher, spiraling debt growth even faster. Neither Trump nor Biden offer an actionable plan to reduce the debt. In less than a decade, Medicare and Social Security funds will not be able to cover expenses.
I was pleased to hear the newly-elected Speaker Johnson call for a bipartisan debt committee in the House. This discussion is long overdue.
Neither Trump nor Biden understand that meaningful immigration reform, enacted through Congress, is the only way to manage the border crisis, not executive orders or multi-billion-dollar barricade systems.
Simply put, neither Trump nor Biden are fit for office. Republicans, in their anti-Biden furor, need to do better than put up an alternative candidate. We must nominate a candidate who can govern our country through dangerous times. Donald Trump, under multiple indictments, seeking only personal power and profit, is not that candidate.
The Democrats have a fairly deep bench if the party could wean itself from its love of incumbents (something it shares with the GOP). Gretchen Whitmer, Amy Klobuchar or Cory Booker could probably all command national followings.
Our current likely nominees are too old and when given the chance to prove themselves in the job, performed poorly. The stakes in today's world are far too high to hand the running of the world's primary democratic superpower back to either one of them.
Merritt Hamilton Allen is a PR executive and former Navy officer. She appeared regularly as a panelist on NM PBS and is a frequent guest on News Radio KKOB. A Republican, she lives amicably with her Democratic husband north of I-40 where they run one head of dog, and two of cat. She can be reached at news.ind.merritt@gmail.com.