From NBC News (while its still broadcasting):
"Kevin McCarthy faces an unenviable choice this week: keep his job as speaker, or team up with Democrats to keep the government from shutting down.
"Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., and other conservative hard-liners are threatening to overthrow McCarthy, R-Calif., if he works with Democrats to pass a short-term, stopgap measure to keep the government open."
(What I'm about to write presupposes that Kevin McCarthy has a rationality gene buried somewhere, and still struggling to survive, in his Bakersfield DNA. If I have misdiagnosed his genome, strike this.)
Should the speaker refuse to work with the Dems and the government shuts down and remains shut down for some ungodly length of time, which, for sure, would stiffen Matt and make Marge moist, the odds of his losing the speakership would be roughly the same as if he strikes a deal with the loathsome opposition.
Empirically, voters have blamed the GOP for its shutdowns, which if repeated (and there is little reason to believe it would not) would likely cost Kevin his majority in the House and therefore his job. Hence a shutdown is for the speaker as dangerous as the lunatic hard right.
First he'll attempt caving into the loonies with individual votes on appropriation bills for the departments of Defense, State, Homeland Security and Agriculture. Each bill harbors severe budget cuts, which McCarthy hopes will pacify the loonies enough they'll then support a CR, so that the slashing game can go on.
The prospect for this tactic is gloomy. Thus McCarthy will need to make a snap decision before the government's funding expires this weekend.
I'm betting he decides to hook up with the Democrats. In addition to forestalling a ruinous shutdown, at some point he must also demonstrate that he's not a wholly owned subsidiary of the far right's Nihilism Inc. This time is as good as any. In fact, it's ideal.
But, see: parenthetical caveat.
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Here are just some of the cuts with which McCarthy is so far appeasing the hard right:
"Cutting housing subsidies for the poor by 33 percent as soaring rents drive a national affordability crisis. Forcing more than 1 million women and children onto the waitlist of a nutritional assistance program for poor mothers with young children. Reducing federal spending on home heating assistance for low-income families by more than 70 percent with energy prices high heading into the winter months." (WaPo)