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Freshly minted House Speaker Mike Johnson<\/strong> is defending his plan<\/a> to fund U.S. aid to Israel by gutting the Internal Revenue Service as evidence of Republicans \u201ctrying to be good stewards of the taxpayer\u2019s resources,\u201d even as research points to the plan adding significantly to the government deficit.<\/p>\n Johnson\u2019s first significant move since his meteoric rise to power was to push forward with a bill to pay for a $14.3 billion aid package for Israel by cutting the same amount from the IRS.<\/p>\n The bill, which passed the House<\/a> largely along party lines on Thursday, faces a steep uphill battle in the Senate, given that Majority Leader Chuck Schumer<\/strong> promises<\/a> to avoid bringing it up for a vote.<\/p>\n Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell<\/strong> has said<\/a> he\u2019d prefer to have the Israel aid incorporated into a broader aid package that would include funding to Ukraine and Taiwan as well as reforms to U.S. border policy. President Joe Biden<\/strong>\u2014who in October proposed<\/a> a $106 billion foreign aid package that would do just that\u2014has also threatened to veto the House legislation if it comes across his desk<\/p>\n Johnson defended<\/a> his plan in a Sunday interview with Fox News\u2019 Shannon Beam<\/strong>. \u201cWe weighed priorities and said, \u2018It is more important to protect Israel than to hire more IRS agents,\u2019\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \u201cInstead of printing new dollars or borrowing it from another nation to send over to fulfill our obligations and help our ally, we want to pay for it. What a concept,\u201d he added. \u201cWe are trying to change how Washington works.\u201d<\/p>\n A nonpartisan report released by the Congressional Budget Office challenges<\/a> Johnson\u2019s assessment and finds that the plan would actually result in over $26 billion in lost government revenue over the next decade, which translates to adding over $12 billion to the deficit.<\/p>\n That\u2019s because the cuts target funding to the agency provided by Biden\u2019s signature Inflation Reduction Act that focuses on making it easier for people to pay their taxes and for the agency to crack down on wealthy tax cheats.<\/p>\n \u201cAll of those [Inflation Reduction Act] funds go to increased scrutiny on tax evasion going on at the highest wealth \u2014 that is millionaires, billionaires, large corporations and large complex partnerships,\u201d IRS Commissioner Danny Werfel<\/strong> said<\/a> last week. \u201cWhen you reduce those audits, you reduce the amount of money that we can collect and return to the Treasury for other priorities,\u201d Werfel predicted<\/a> the GOP plan would add up to $90 billion to the deficit.<\/p>\n In his Sunday interview, Johnson dodged a question from Beam about whether his plan would add to the deficit. \u201cRight now, we have a $33.6 trillion deferral debt. Just last week, the Treasury Department of the Biden administration said we\u2019re going to have to borrow over $1.5 trillion over the next two quarters, six months to continue our operation as a government,\u201d Johnson said. \u201cThis is not a sustainable track. We can take care of our obligations, but we can do it in a responsible manner, and that\u2019s what we\u2019re committed to.\u201d<\/p>\n Johnson also defended the House GOP\u2019s plans to marry funding for Ukraine with funding for the U.S. southern border. \u201cWhen you couple Ukraine and the border, that makes sense to people,\u201d he said. \u201cIf we\u2019re going to protect Ukraine\u2019s border \u2026 we have to take care of our own border first.\u201d<\/p>\n Though the House\u2019s Israel aid bill is almost certainly dead on arrival in the Senate, Johnson\u2019s intransigence does mean that Congress will likely continue to struggle to approve any emergency spending plan that would provide aid to Israel and Ukraine in the coming weeks.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n