Mike Johnson doesn't believe in taxes
Look at his recent not-serious legislative effort
If new Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, Maga-La., has his way, the amount spent on aid for Israel would be removed from the budget of the IRS. Check out this supplemental appropriations package, and most particularly the section “budgetary offsets:”
SEC. 306. (a) RESCISSION OF CERTAIN BALANCES MADE AVAILABLE TO THE INTERNAL REVENUE SERVICE.—Of the unobligated balances of amounts appropriated or otherwise made available for activities of the Internal Revenue Service by paragraphs (1)(B), (2), (3), (4), and (5) of section 10301 of Public Law 117–169 (commonly known as the ‘‘Inflation Reduction Act of 2022’’) as of the date of the enactment of this Act, $14,300,000,000 are hereby rescinded.
The actual expenditures of the IRS for fiscal year 2022 amounted to precisely $14.3 billion. Funny how that works, isn’t it?
A distaste for paying taxes (ostensibly so that believers can keep their hard-earned money and decide what to spend to help the poor without government intervention) — tracks with Christian nationalism, of which Mike is a poster boy. Faith America, an online Christian group that works for social justice, calls Johnson “a dangerous extremist,” maybe even the country’s most dangerous. He is also the least experienced speaker in 140 years. He’s bad for women and their health and he’s not even evolved enough to be called a throwback.
The quicker Bro. Mike is returned to the damp cave from which he came, the better. We can do better — much better.
Tangent:
There's also something that's been finessed deep in US public discourse. Well, I'll mention two connected things.
The concept of taxes floats from from talk about purchases/expenditures. There is no discussion of the value of government-provided infrastructure* purchased and provided by the government. Talk of taxes is always talked about as "redistribution" (as if commercial interactions did not redistribute types and quantities of value).
Thus in the stern daddy talk about Government Debt discourse is constantly and only about reducing expenditures (whose usefulness and under provision through market action is not discussed), while talk of requiring people to pay legally mandated taxes, let alone increasing any tax rates, is brushed off the table with a casual, cufflinked arm.
* Tangible and intangible: not just roads and bridges and railways and stop signs but the administration of law and justice, the states of health and education of the nation, the treasures of the unmarketed ambient environment.
The man is downright dangerous. No other way to say it.