Johnson Rolls Out Israel Aid Plan Amid Objections by White House

Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) won the gavel for insisting that he would stop passing omnibus spending.

In his first crack at funding legislation, he delivered on that promise, much to the chagrin of the White House.

Biden was asking for a massive funding bill of more than $100 billion for Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan. But Johnson broke out the Israel funding on its own, and is now poised to pass it through the House and on to the Senate.

White House Objects

The Israel Supplemental Appropriations Act, proposed by Rep. Kay Granger (R-TX) offers up $14.3 billion for Israel aid, which was right in the ballpark for what Biden asked in his larger bill.

The House plans on paying for the bill with funding that was already secured in Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), which did nothing for inflation and was more or less climate legislation under a different name.

The White House is livid that the GOP House is now trying to pull back unspent funds from Biden’s IRA and looking to make use of them rather than hit the taxpayer with another massive bill.

White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre stated, “Threatening to undermine American national security unless House Republicans can help the wealthy and big corporations cheat on their taxes—which would increase the deficit—is the definition of backwards.

“Playing political games that threaten the source of funding for Israel’s self-defense—now and into the future—would set an unacceptable precedent that calls our commitment to one of our closest allies into question.

“We cannot afford to jeopardize that commitment as Israel defends itself from the evil unleashed by Hamas.”

This is actually a brilliant move by Johnson and Republicans to pull back a nice chunk of the $72 billion that had been earmarked for the IRS in the IRA bill.

It will also put Democrats on the spot to make a decision if they want to fund the IRS or help protect the world from terrorism.

We all know how this game is played, and again, this is right out of the Democrat playbook.

If you recall, when Biden first took office, he buried police funding in an omnibus bill that funded loads of Democrat pet projects but when the GOP voted against it for the excessive funding of other programs, Democrats only concentrated on the police funding aspect of the bill when it was very clear why the GOP voted against the legislation.

Now the shoe is on the other foot, with the GOP actually pulling money away from an agency that nobody wants to fund to cover the cost of Israeli aid. This is a win for Israel and the American people, but it will be a massive loss for the Democrats, which is why they will vote against the bill.