One Sunday in March 1888, former President Rutherford B. Hayes wrote in his diary, "This is a government of the people, by the people, and for the people no longer. It is a government of corporations, by corporations, and for corporations." Hayes offered this private admission at the peak of the Gilded Age, when, as the historian Richard White put it, "corruption suffused government and the economy." Businessmen amassed fortunes never seen before in American history and demanded government officials aid them in expanding those fortunes further.
If there was any doubt that we are in a new Gilded Age, Speaker Mike Johnson's admission to Fox News Wednesday obliterated it.
Johnson appeared on "Fox and Friends" the morning after congressional leaders released the full text of a deal to keep the federal government running through mid-March. As my colleague Hayes Brown explained Tuesday, Congress needs to pass a funding bill this week to avoid "a decidedly unmerry shutdown." On the one hand, most House Republicans don't want to vote for a bill that Senate Democrats and President Joe Biden will accept. But they also don't want to be blamed for a government shutdown. To square this circle, Johnson planned to count on Democratic votes to expedite the bill's passage with a two-thirds majority, so much of his caucus can oppose the deal without consequence.
This is a preview of James Downie's latest article. Read the full column here.
