New Speaker’s Priorities: Surrender Ukraine, Hobble the IRS to Protect Tax Cheats
...and the Speaker's views on guns, evolution, and elections
So MAGA Mike’s first legislative gambit was to counter President Biden’s budget request that bundled aid for Ukraine and Israel with money to bolster security along the U.S.-Mexico border, security aid for Taiwan and humanitarian assistance in hot spots around the world,[1] with a proposal that would strip out money for Ukraine (which this Speaker as a rank-and-file congressman has consistently opposed), leaving only the $14.3 billion the administration wants to send to Israel.
As for the aid to Israel, there’s a big BUT attached. Those dollars for Israel are not new spending, but to be taken from the funds that were meant to update and strengthen the IRS’s ability to find tax cheats.
Why would you want to do that when independent estimates by the Congressional Budget Office and others have projected that “investing in the IRS” would more than pay for itself? Could it be because it will save wealthy Republican donors and other tax cheats in excess of $170 billion.[2]
More than ten times the Israel aid package and far more that the total bundled in Biden’s request.
And why strip out the aid to Ukraine?
Maybe because Ukraine’s President Zelensky declined to launch a fake investigation of Hunter Biden?
Perhaps to reward Trump’s Russian sponsor, Vladimir Putin?
Perhaps to get on the good side of the authoritarians around the world that more and more Congressional Republicans seem to suck up to?
Tell us what you think in the COMMENTS section below.
MASS SHOOTINGS: BLAME AMERICANS’ HEARTS, NOT AMERICA’s GUNS
The Speaker told Sean Hannity at Fox “news” that it’s a failure of Americans’ hearts, not our non-existent gun laws, that are to blame for mass shootings…and now, while “we are in the midst of this crisis, is not the time to discuss legislation,” as if the members of Congress were out on the front lines looking for the perpetrator. Watch the interview here. A pathetic pair.
But be assured, they are praying for us.
ACCORDING TO SPEAKER MAGA MIKE: DINOSAURS ON NOAH’S ARK – REALLY
God’s chosen one, Speaker Mike Johnson, represented a purveyor of the “theory” that dinosaurs joined humans on Noah’s Ark. REALLY. Read about it here.
…MEANWHILE HE PLIED OTHER FALSEHOODS TO (TRY TO) STEAL AN ELECTION…we’ve reported on this before, but watch here.
[1] Biden Requests $105 Billion Aid Package for Israel, Ukraine and Other Crises - The New York Times (nytimes.com)
[2] Another study by the National Bureau of Economic Research found that every additional dollar spent on auditing high-income taxpayers yielded $12 in new revenue for the Treasury. According to the NY Times, by that calculation MAGA Mike’s could cost the country $171.6 billion.