Former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy left Congress at the end of 2023, but that doesn’t mean McCarthy’s impact won’t continue to be felt. The first days of 2024 — as Congress deals with budgetary issues that threaten a shutdown — and the period following, especially concerning numerous tight 2024 congressional races, are expected to have McCarthy’s fingerprints all over them.
McCarthy’s enduring sway manifests through two primary avenues — money at his disposal and the legacy of his legislation, since the working document around which Congress and the Whitehouse must currently maneuver is the Fiscal Responsibility Act (FRA), otherwise known as the deal McCarthy struck with President Joe Biden to raise the debt limit for the remainder of 2023. (Biden signed the legislation on June 3.)
McCarthy, accused of holding the government “hostage” for his negotiating tactics, exacted a number of concessions in the FRA, including oil industry friendly drilling rights and major measures to defang the IRS’s goal to go after missing revenue from wealthy scofflaws. (The concessions eventually proved too little to help him hold the speakership.)
In addition to the FRA, McCarthy may cede his office but hardly cedes the field, since he still controls more than $14 million to spend through a PAC and his own re-election funding, which can be re-purposed to help GOP contenders anywhere in the country.
Some of those campaign funds may need to go back to contributors, as Punchbowl reports below, but much of it is given to the mission as much as the man and will likely stay under McCarthy’s control as he tries to influence the outcomes of numerous elections in November.
As Punchbowl News reports: “McCarthy has a ton of political cash that he can spend on practically anything besides directly enriching himself. His Majority Committee PAC, or MC PAC, has $4 million on hand, while his reelection campaign committee – McCarthy for Congress – has $10.6 million. McCarthy may have to give some money back to donors but expect this kitty will help fund his political operation going forward.”
