Letters to the Editor: If the government shuts down, Kevin McCarthy will bear some of the blame

To the editor: An open letter to Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy (R-Bakersfield):

You’ve created a dilemma for yourself on the budget resolution. While you gave extremist radicals everything they asked for, they still refuse to govern responsibly. Although you and the president made an agreement to avoid U.S. debt default, the extremists wanted you to dishonor the deal with new spending cuts — and you complied! Nevertheless, your party’s ideologues refuse to fund the government. You yielded to their irresponsible calls to waste time and resources for impeachment without credible evidence, yet those radical Republicans still refuse to support serious governing.

There’s a way out of this dilemma caused by your bad choices. Propose a clean, fully funded continuing resolution with no political stunts riding in sidecars. Surely, you can find four reasonable Republicans (plus yourself) to vote with the Democrats and keep our government going.

That’s what real governing, real leadership, would look like.

Bruce Joffe, Piedmont

..

To the editor: The chaos in the current House of Representatives is partly on McCarthy and his ego. The rest of it is on the bomb-throwing, hypocritical MAGA supporters in the House who want to burn it all down.

Barry Greenfield, West Hollywood

..

To the editor: Poor Kevin McCarthy. And he wanted this job so badly.

His Republican Party is in shambles and the right-wingers apparently want a government shutdown just to see what happens. So, his job as speaker is on the line over this? It will be very interesting and entertaining to see how that plays out.

Republicans have embraced revenge politics, investigating the investigators. Real governance is shut down already. Meanwhile, the American people get to, what, suffer? I don’t know what a government shutdown will look like either. It will surely be interesting, though not likely entertaining.

Bob Warnock, Los Angeles