Hello everybody, and thank you for tuning into the weekly report.

Will a new house speaker solve our problems?

Last week, we witnessed a dramatic, historical first.

A speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives was removed from that position

by a vote from members of that body.

U.S. Representative Matt Gates was able to gather enough Republicans

dissatisfied with the leadership of then-speaker Kevin McCarthy

to send him packing. What was the last straw?

According to Gates, it was McCarthy's secret deal with President Biden

and the Democrats to bring up another huge funding package

for Ukraine separately if they agreed to support a bill to keep the government open

without Ukraine's money in it. Gates and his allies were angry that they were

kept in the dark about the deal, and in the end it only took eight Republican

rebels to end McCarthy's eight months in the chair.

Several thoughtful members, including my friend Thomas Massey,

made convincing arguments that Republicans removing the speaker

would do little to nothing when looking at the bigger picture of a record U.S.

debt, a continuously growing budget deficit

and runaway inflation. It would also be argued

do little to fix a broken house of representatives

where members are more interested in show voting

than taking a needed chainsaw to the massive yearly on-the-best

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