Adam Kinzinger Gains a Worthy Successor After GOP House Member Launches Unhinged Attack
Adam Kinzinger may no longer be present within the halls of Capitol Hill, but another Republican House member is already stepping up to take his place.
Rep. Tony Gonzales (R-TX) has become increasingly unhinged since a group of conservatives extracted concessions from Kevin McCarthy so the latter could become Speaker of the House. To start, he announced on Sunday evening that he will vote “no” on the new rules package, a package that even Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) has admitted is the most conservative in a generation.
And stick around because it gets much worse.
Why is Gonzales against the rules package? According to him, the deal struck with McCarthy will decrease defense spending, and he just can’t have that.
For context, defense spending was just increased yet again during the last omnibus fight, with the wasteful, largely unaccountable Department of Defense garnering tens of billions more on top of the money that was previously appropriated. Given that, why would any Republican be willing to nuke an excellent rules package on the off chance some woke general might not be able to buy another golden toilet seat?
But to be clear, Gonzales’ excuse isn’t even true. There was no deal to “decrease” military spending. Rather, there was talk of abiding by the prior year’s baselines in the next budget battle instead of automatically shoveling 5-10 percent more into the coffers of a Pentagon that already can’t account for 60 percent of what it spends.
I’ve made no secret of the fact that I’m sick and tired of Republicans using defense spending as an excuse to allow bad governance. Not a single member of the GOP should have voted for the last omnibus just because it increased defense spending. That’s a ridiculous way to operate, rubber stamping objectively terrible bills as long as they include a few extra bucks for the military.
Gonzales didn’t stop at his pledge to sabotage the new House majority, though. He then decided to go full Kinzinger, using his military service to attack his GOP colleagues as “insurgents.”
First of all, Gonzales served and that’s laudable, but the guy was a cryptologist. I’m not even sure he actually “fought” any insurgents. But I digress, that’s not really the point. The point is that it’s moronic to compare his fellow Republican House members to insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan just because they chose not to fall in line. That’s the same nonsense that’s been pushed by Democrats and their press allies, i.e. that it’s terroristic for Republicans to think independently and not just do what leadership tells them to do.
Keep in mind that Gonzales’ unhinged attack took place days after the battle over Speaker had already ended. At least Dan Crenshaw made his “terrorists” comment in the heat of the moment and later apologized for it. Gonzales had time to think through things and observe Crenshaw’s example, and he still decided it’d be a good idea to trash his own GOP colleagues as terrorists.
If this is what the Republican Party has become, then it’s no wonder it’s in such dire straits. Most GOP voters are not sitting around worried about whether the defense budget will be $860 billion or $900 billion. If that’s all Gonzales cares about, perhaps he should think about adjusting his priorities because channeling Adam Kinzinger is only going to earn him scorn, and rightfully so.
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