What was Mike Johnson thinking?
One of Mike Johnson’s first acts as speaker involves manipulation and lies. His great idea to send billions to Israel by taking it from the IRS is ridiculous. Those funds were allocated under the Inflation Reduction Act to catch wealthy tax cheaters to make up lost revenues caused by the Bush and Trump tax cuts for the wealthy. The Act was President Biden’s way of funneling additional funds into the government to battle the deficit. This man wants the government to lose more. This makes no sense unless you’re a Republican looking to help rich donors and friends.
At the same time, he’s looking to cut Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. Do you see a pattern here? Let’s help our rich friends and squeeze the middle class (which barely exists anymore) while taking money from the elderly and poor. According to Mike Johnson: “Only in Washington when you cut spending do they call it increasing the deficit.” We’re not as stupid as Johnson may think. Spending that increases revenue doesn’t count. Why don’t we, instead, cut everyone’s salaries in Washington? That might even result in some separation of the wheat from the chaff.
The Congressional Budget Office calculated Johnson’s plan would decrease revenue by $26.8 billion, while adding $12.5 billion to the deficit, which would increase to $90 billion over ten years. Johnson’s claim that “people care more about helping Israel than the IRS” is bullshitting at its finest. Even Republican senators know this is a bad move. Mitt Romney spoke out about it: “The reason we have the IRS is to make sure people pay their taxes. That’s our source of revenue. So, the idea that we’re going to save money by having fewer people checking on whether we’re paying our taxes doesn’t make a lot of sense.” This bill is going nowhere, and one can only wonder why Johnson even proposed such a ridiculous idea. Reading about Johnson’s donors may give us a clue.
CNBC reported that Johnson has compiled a group of wealthy Louisiana backers who can greatly help with Johnson’s fundraising efforts for the GOP. Two of Johnson’s biggest donors, Donald “Boysie” Bollinger and Joseph Canizaro, raised $4 million for Donald Trump’s campaign in one night with one fundraiser. They are obviously good at what they do, and they now support Johnson. Many of Johnson’s other donors, according to OpenSecrets, come from the oil and gas industry. Imagine that. Yet this guy claims he knows what Americans want and strives to give it to us. Oil and gas have over the years made some of the biggest profits-profits that they refuse to share by keeping the price of gas high when they could easily reduce their profit margin.
Most Republicans are not for the people. They never have been. They’re all about benefiting themselves and their wealthy friends. Fortunately, as reported this week, many Republican Senators are against Johnson’s plan, including Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and Senator Lindsey Graham. With this type of opposition and the opposition of Democrats, Johnson’s bill will remain but a pipe dream.
Shirley is a former entertainment writer and has worked in the legal field for over 25 years