As soon as the chaos surrounding the election of the new chairman of the House of Representatives is over, the next back and forth in the US Congress is imminent. Now it’s about aid packages for Israel and Ukraine.
“Absolutely irresponsible”, “a political stunt”. Supporters of the US Democrats are outraged by the bill for more aid to Israel passed in the House of Representatives with a Republican majority. “There’s no chance this will ever be passed into law,” predicted Democratic House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries. And the Democratic Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer has already announced that he will not even allow the bill, which he described as a “complete failure,” to be voted on in the Senate.
Republicans want cuts to tax agency
The Senate will not agree. And even if – US President Joe Biden has already announced his veto, although the Democrats themselves are in favor of Israel support, but not on the terms of the Republicans. One of them: The more than 14 billion dollars for Israel should be counter-financed – through corresponding cuts to the US tax authority IRS.
For the right wing of the Republicans, the IRS is an agency exploited by the Biden government, from which the middle class in particular suffers. The new chairman of the House of Representatives, Republican Mike Johnson, rejected the accusation that he had made a concession to the ultra-right in his group with this condition. He made it clear that it was not about political calculation, but about fiscal responsibility.
According to a forecast by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, cuts to the Internal Revenue Service, as Republicans are seeking, would cost the government billions in revenue through tax fraud. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen warned on CNN that the only people who benefited were rich tax cheats and companies that paid less in taxes than they should.
Senate could present its own bill
But that’s not the only point of contention in the Republicans’ Israel bill. The bill does not contain any further support for Ukraine. Mike Johnson, who has voted against new aid to Ukraine several times, wants to have this voted on separately. Even his party colleagues in the Senate criticize him for this. Republican Senator Lindsay Graham, for example, said that separating aid to Israel and Ukraine would be naive. The threats have similarities.
And Republican Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell emphasized: The United States does not have the luxury of closing its doors and hoping that evil will leave them alone. Now is not the time for the leader of the free world to go to sleep, said McConnell.
It is possible that the Senate will present its own bill for Israel and Ukraine in one package as early as next week. It is unlikely that it will pass through the House of Representatives. Negotiations are taking place behind the scenes, but it will probably take a long time until an agreement is reached.