Andy Harris and the Freedom Caucus are Feckless Do Nothing Blowhards

Instead of fighting for small government and fiscal responsibility, Andy Harris cowered in the corner and said, “Please, don’t hurt me.”

When the obituary is written for the Freedom Caucus (and we are quickly getting close to that point, if we are not there already), this will be the story people remember most:

At around 3:20 a.m., after holding the vote open for nearly six hours while Johnson and Trump lobbied them furiously, several hardline conservative holdouts voted to move forward with the measure, ending a dramatic floor stalemate.

The holdouts included Reps. Josh Brecheen (Okla.), Eric Burlison (Mo.)., Keith Self (Texas), Scott Perry (Pa.), Bob Onder (Mo.), Andy Harris (Md.) and Chip Roy (Texas).

Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Pa.), a moderate, was the only no vote.

What makes this so remarkable is that Harris, Roy and Self spent a huge chunk of this week dumping all over the bill, only to vote for it with absolutely no changes a day later. Roy went as far as to say that he wouldn’t vote for a rule at all and indicated he wanted to revise the package and send it back to the Senate. That’s not going to happen now.

“We made some progress on some fiscal issues,” Self told us early this morning.

The House Freedom Caucus caved once again.

They will lose a tremendous amount of sway in the wake of this episode.

During his leadership of the House Freedom Caucus, Andy Harris has folded more than an origami artist making a swan. A caucus that was ostensibly an offshoot of the Tea Party Caucus, a caucus that on paper stood for fiscal responsibility, merely bowed to Donald Trump and allowed a $5 trillion debt ceiling increase and a $3.4 trillion actual debt increase to pass without a fight.