Story by M.L. Nestel • RawStory
Rep. Mike Johnson
If Republicans get their way to support interests abroad — the IRS budget will take a hit worth billions of dollars.
On Monday, the House Rules Committee proposed a $14 billion package to help bolster Israel's military as it continues warring with Hamas, and the monies would be slashed from the Internal Revenue Service to stop its efforts to probe deep-pocketed tax cheats, according to the Washington Post.
"I understand their priority is to bulk up the IRS," Johnson said in an interview with Fox News. "But I think if you put this to the American people and they weigh the two needs, I think they're going to say standing with Israel and protecting the innocent over there is in our national interest and is a more immediate need than IRS agents."
The legislation comes as President Joe Biden offered to bankroll the allied country with about the same sum in his Israel Aid Plan, but it didn't come with a cleaving IRS budget.
It also comes after some conservatives since January have gone on the offensive against the arm of government tasked with collecting funds from all U.S. taxpayers.
The countermeasure of finding a way to pay for the theatre in both Gaza and Ukraine is one of the first lines in the sand drawn by newly minted House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) since he took over the gig about a month after Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) was ousted by a contingent in his own party.
Related video: House Israel aid bill includes $14.3 billion by slashing IRS funds (NBC News)Duration 3:04 View on Watch
“It becomes the piggy bank the Democrats have accepted already,” Grover Norquist, an anti-tax proponent at Americans for Tax Reform, told the outlet.
Republicans are seeking to make marked cuts to the IRS after moving to undo the IRS expansion dictated in Biden's Inflation Reduction Act last year of which they already rescinded $20 billion from the original $80 billion price tag that was established as part of a compromise to raise the country's debt ceiling.
Meanwhile, Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-NY) said Democrats are attempting to hammer out a bipartisan deal with Republicans.
“We can’t wait for the House, who knows what will happen there," he rhetorically asked last week, according to Politico. "The Senate will go first. It’s my hope that if the Senate can move quickly and pass something with strong bipartisan support we can importune the House to act."
'There are American hostages': House GOP slammed for 'exploiting a war to pass a tax cut'
House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana), Image via screengrab/X.
David Badashand
The New Civil Rights Movement
The House GOP under Speaker Mike Johnson has put forth legislation to provide aid to Israel for its war against Hamas terrorists, but in what some say is an unprecedented move Republicans are claiming they must include “offsets” to pay for the $14.3 billion package. Those “offsets,” or “pay-fors,” some say, will actually cost Americans more money: they come from cuts to the IRS.
Punchbowl News cofounder Jake Sherman reports the “offset will NEVER, EVER fly. Dems will reject it out of hand.”
Aaron Fritschner, the Deputy Chief of Staff for U.S. Rep. Don Beyer (D-VA) points out: “This is not an ‘offset’ and the use of that word in this context is not appropriate. Every relevant authority from CBO [Congressional Budget Office] on down has said that cutting IRS funding this way would *increase* deficits. This isn’t an offset, it’s exploiting a war to pass a tax cut for the rich.”
U.S. Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D-FL) says it is an “obvious trap set by unserious people.”
“Was this in the Bible?” Moskowitz adds, appearing to refer to the large number of reports detailing Speaker Mike Johnson’s Christian nationalism. “To choose between Israel and the IRS. This is dead in the Senate. It violates Republicans single subject spending rule. It adds to the deficit. Playing political games with Israel’s security. I will support Israel.”
“Foreign Policy and National Security being conducted as a future political mailer,” Moskowitz later added. “’You chose the IRS over Israel’. I am not going to take the bait. There are American Hostages. This is not a game.”
Fritschner goes one step further, noting that the Congressional Budget Office’s “score” of the bill’s impact “will not be accurate because the bill ends with a section in which the Republicans instruct CBO not to count the effects of the bill that increase the deficit!”
“Fool people into believing you are cutting deficits using this one weird trick,” he adds, mockingly.
Mother Jones’ Washington, D.C. Bureau Chief David Corn labels the bill, “Helping the wealthy get away with cheating on their taxes so Israel has more bombs to drop.”
Colin Seeberge, a senior adviser at the liberal public policy research organization, Center for American Progress, writes: “This isn’t a pay-for, it’s a back door tax cut for the wealthy. Just outrageous.”
Journalist John Harwood: “House GOP’s price for helping Israel: making it easier for rich people to cheat on their taxes.”
Mark McDevitt, Chief of Staff to U.S. Rep. Lori Trahan (D-MA), blasted Republicans: “Deeply f*cking unserious people during very f*cking serious times. What a disgrace.”
Matt Glassman, Ph.D., of Georgetown University’s Government Affairs Institute sarcastically called the GOP’s bill a “galaxy-brain move.”
“‘Offsetting’ spending by cutting IRS funding is such a galaxy-brain move, since you could also offset it by *increasing* IRS funding,” Glassman writes.
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