By Steve Woodward
After a standing ovation swept him toward the podium, Rep. Richard Hudson greeted constituents assembled in a church’s meeting hall on the occasion of North Carolina’s Ninth Congressional District Republican convention.
Hudson might have been expected to rally core volunteers who reside in the six counties that comprise the Ninth in this critical election cycle — possibly the last chance Republicans will have to impede the downfall of our nation, and sustain the world’s indispensable beacon of freedom.
He is not known as a rousing orator but Hudson was particularly subdued on this April afternoon inside Asheboro’s Sunset Avenue Church of God. We all get it. The halls of Congress are toxic. It is the Garden of Good and Evil. Being one of the good guys is hard work.
But that’s what we elect Hudson and fellow Republicans to do in Washington. To defy the Left, stand in the breech, take the arrows. With our culture eroding and our economic foundation crumbling, this is not the time to come home looking for sympathy.
Hudson’s objective for being on hand, other than obligation, apparently was to deliver a civics lesson. Those who actually paid attention noted a tone and tenor of frustration toward Republicans who are not universally pleased by recent House passage of a $1.2 trillion bill to avert a “government shutdown” until the next one looms in September.
Said Hudson, “72 percent of the bill funds the military.” Technically, that’s fairly accurate but nothing extraordinary. These government funding bills always are weighted toward defense spending. Conversely, the Democrat-fueled narrative that a government shutdown imperils military defense of national interests is false. When shutdowns occur — sometimes, they are necessary, which we will explain shortly — soldiers are paid (on a deferred basis), social entitlement checks are delivered, and layers of bureaucrats do us the favor of staying home.
We know there are members of Congress who understand what fellow Republicans demand at this tenuous moment in history because we see them come to the fore when the status quo defenders begin closing their ranks. We see unrelenting North Carolinian Dan Bishop, Florida’s Matt Gaetz, Georgia’s Marjorie Taylor Greene, Colorado’s Lauren Boebert and tough-as-nails Texan Chip Roy, illuminating the rampant hypocrisy. We saw 112 Republicans vote “no”, in fact.
This is not the time for lectures about “making choices in a divided government”. That was Hudson’s defense of this spending bill that only a Democrat could love — as evidenced by its immediate passage by the Dem-controlled Senate.
If House Speaker Mike Johnson possessed the leadership instincts to meet the moment, not one penny would have been allocated to any program until the U.S. southern border was shut down. Completely. Every port of entry. Every Non-Governmental Organization-supported processing center. Every charter flight into the homeland.
Instead, the border remains wide open. And, even if you turn a blind eye to the ongoing security crisis it poses, to the murders of innocent Americans where they live, work and go to school, and to the deadly toll of unfettered fentanyl that crosses with the young savages, even if all for this does not infuriate you, then where do you turn for solace? In what happens to those who are spared?
What is their reward in the Faustian bargain? They live to see the implosion of the U.S. economy when the federal debt bomb finally detonates.
“This bill affirms and funds (Joe) Biden’s open border invasion,” a statement issued by Rep. Bishop warned after its passage on March 22, 2024. “At this very moment, Biden is allowing illegal immigrants to pour across our border and is using your tax dollars to sow disorder and chaos in our communities.
“The bill is also chock-full of earmarks that fund the radical Left’s cultural indoctrination crusade against our children and families. They are selling our children and grandchildren deeper down the swirling debt spiral.”
That’s what we did not hear last Saturday in Asheboro. From Rep. Hudson we heard complaints that social media distorts his record. We heard that the spending bill funds more border patrol agents (it actually funds the recruitment of agents without a timeline specified); funds more beds (7,500) for detainees, who are detained until they are turned over to Catholic Charities, and similar organizations, which send them into the night by the busloads.
The 101 Republicans who voted for an open border to keep an open (dysfunctional) government cheered a $27 billion funding increase for the Department of Defense. But just guess what concessions Johnson and his loyal lieutenants did not demand in return:
- An end to funding inter-state travel by military personnel seeking abortions when they can’t abort a birth where they are based;
- An end to transgender “care” (mutilation surgery) for DOD personnel and related agencies;
- Defunding of the DOD’s offices dedicated to diversity, equity and inclusion
Also hidden away in the 1,012-page theft manual (bill) were obscene earmarks running the gamut from the funding of programs to advance “climate resilience” and “equity in manufacturing” (how’s that working for Boeing?).
Rep. Hudson did not address the earmarks but he did remind the room that he is third in line to become House Speaker. Rather than continuing to audition we’d have been much more impressed had he simply voted “no” on the bill and focused less on Civics 101 and more on critical analysis.
“All I think about is how we can win,” Rep. Hudson said.
Worthy as that is if it’s at the expense of Democrats, it’s also not very reassuring for dialed-in Americans who see federal debt surging toward $35 trillion, who read in The Wall Street Journal that “the federal budget deficit for the first six months of fiscal 2024, ending in March, was $1.064 trillion” fueled by $3.25 trillion in total outlays, and that interest payments on debt across those same six months are $440 billion, which “exceeded the $412 billion in outlays for defense.”
In the face of this grim reality that sentences future generations to debt enslaved serfdom, for which we assign blame in equal measure to members of both parties, why stand up when our elected servants walk into a room? Why do we even clap? We should be using the backs of our hands.