The hopeful view of this help-Israel-and-cut-the-IRS gambit is that it’s cynical: Mr. Johnson follows in the footsteps of previous speakers, from both parties, who have brought up extreme legislation to appease party hard-liners before moving on to something more pragmatic. If that’s his play, it can serve as the prelude to what would become a good-faith negotiation to fund the United States’ most important ally in the Middle East as it defends itself from an Iran-backed terrorist movement guilty of horrific atrocities.
The more unsettling possibility is that the neophyte speaker wants to embody the role of “MAGA Mike Johnson,” as former president Donald Trump dubbed him on social media, in an effort to consolidate power inside the House GOP conference. In that case, Mr. Johnson is engaging in legislative obstructionism and brinkmanship even at the risk of undermining key bipartisan foreign policy objectives. In addition to cutting help for Ukraine and resources to increase border security from his bill, the speaker also cut out the White House’s proposals for humanitarian assistance for Palestinians.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) argues poignantly that supporting the self-defense of Ukraine against Russia and Israel against Hamas are interconnected struggles for freedom against authoritarianism. But Mr. Johnson, who received backing from a wing of the party that openly scorns Mr. McConnell, says he is determined to consider funding for Israel and Ukraine separately.
That could be defensible, barely, if he were to bring separate bills on each piece of Mr. Biden’s emergency supplemental request to the floor. Instead of doing that, Mr. Johnson is injecting a tax-policy poison pill. Even if the speaker were to do this to offset the cost of helping Israel, defunding the IRS would be counterproductive. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said on Wednesday that Mr. Johnson’s plan would lead to a $26.8 billion decline in revenue. The head of the tax agency estimates that the proposal would ultimately increase the deficit by $90 billion over 10 years. It’s obvious that fewer tax collectors, and less technological modernization, will mean less revenue gets collected.
This posturing comes in the context of Mr. Johnson’s having ascended to the speakership after nearly a month of chaos and the rejection of three other GOP nominees. He benefited from the Republicans’ sheer fatigue and a lack of enemies. Mr. Johnson is the least experienced House member to get the gavel since 1883.
Reasons to be nervous abound. During Mr. Trump’s effort to overturn the results of the 2020 election, Mr. Johnson recruited 125 House Republicans to join him in signing an amicus brief asking the Supreme Court to throw out the results in four states won by Mr. Biden. He has supported efforts to ban abortion nationally, opposed a bill last year to codify same-sex marriage rights and has referred to the “so-called separation of church and state.”
But there are glimmers of hope that he’ll grow into the role. He is mild-mannered and preaches civility. Because he has political capital with ultraconservatives, Mr. Johnson might have more leeway to make compromises than former speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), who always feared — for good reason, it turns out — that hard-liners would deploy a motion to vacate against him. Moreover, every House seat will be on the ballot again a year from now, so Mr. Johnson has incentives to govern in a way that will not imperil his party’s five-seat majority. The GOP must defend 18 seats next year in districts carried by Mr. Biden in 2020, so part of the new speaker’s job is not alienating moderate suburbanites.
At least rhetorically, he also espouses a traditional Reaganesque view of national security that emphasizes the importance of U.S. global leadership. His congressional district includes Barksdale Air Force Base, headquarters of the Air Force Global Strike Command, and Fort Johnson, the Army post formerly known as Fort Polk.
In a new job with such a steep learning curve, Mr. Johnson deserves a minimum of grace and patience — but not an infinite amount. Now that this defund-the-IRS bill has passed the House, with only 12 Democratic votes, Mr. Johnson should allow Congress to pass Mr. Biden’s supplemental funding proposal so that Israel, Ukraine and our own southern border get the help they need.
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