{"id":34079,"date":"2024-05-31T12:05:38","date_gmt":"2024-05-31T19:05:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/?p=34079"},"modified":"2024-05-31T12:05:40","modified_gmt":"2024-05-31T19:05:40","slug":"mike-johnson-plans-republican-mega-bill-ready-to-push-through-if-trump-wins","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/2024\/05\/31\/mike-johnson-plans-republican-mega-bill-ready-to-push-through-if-trump-wins\/","title":{"rendered":"Mike Johnson Plans Republican Mega-Bill Ready to Push Through if Trump Wins"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Robert Tait\/Guardian UK<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"MikeMike Johnson said Republicans wasted time in 2017 because Trump\u2019s victory over Hillary Clinton took them by surprise. (photo: Shutterstock)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

30 may 24<\/strong> (RSN.org)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

House speaker plans far-reaching bill including tax cuts and border security to make Trump \u2018the most consequential president\u2019<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Mike Johnson, the speaker of the US House of Representatives, is planning a sweeping ideological legislative drive that aims to make Donald Trump \u201cthe most consequential president of the modern era\u201d if the Republicans win power in November.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A far-reaching bill containing a range of policy priorities at once \u2013 including tax cuts worth trillions, border security and rolling back Obamacare \u2013 is being prepared to avoid the mistakes the GOP believed happened early in Trump\u2019s first term, when Johnson says the party wasted time because its victory over Hillary Clinton took it by surprise.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In an interview with Semafor<\/a>, Johnson said he had already spoken to Trump about introducing an omnibus package immediately after he retakes office.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI told him that I believe he can be the most consequential president of the modern era, if we are focused on a policy and agenda-driven administration and Congress \u2013 and that\u2019s our intention,\u201d Johnson said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe don\u2019t want to make the mistake that we made in the past. Back in the 2017 timeframe and in previous years, we Republicans kind of took a single-subject approach. We did one round of healthcare reform, one round of tax reform. But for [fiscal year 2025], we want to have a much larger scope, multiple issues to address in addition to the expiration of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The ambitious vision has been thrashed out in recent weeks in meetings with up to nine Republican congressional committee chairs, producing a \u201ctransformational\u201d legislative wishlist. The plans have been communicated across the entire Republican conference, as Johnson seeks to heal the bitter divisions with the party\u2019s hard right that has seen his own speakership challenged.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Republicans\u2019 wafer-thin House majority meant that he needed the votes of Democrats to save his job from a motion tabled by the hardline Georgia congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, making Johnson\u2019s radical vision for the future of his speakership all the more startling.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cA lot of this has to do with communication and coordination and we\u2019ve learned a lot of lessons along the way on both of those things,\u201d he told Semafor. \u201cWhen you have a historically small majority as we do right now, those are really necessary components to building consensus. And we\u2019ve already begun that process.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In a separate interview with Punchbowl, Johnson \u2013 who became speaker last October after an internal GOP coup toppled his predecessor, Kevin McCarthy \u2013 said he had analysed the legislative calendar to ensure the radical reform package would pass in the event of the Republicans capturing both House and Senate, as they did when Trump won in 2016.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe\u2019re very carefully analysing the number of calendar days that we\u2019ll have to work, floor time, all the rest \u2013 everything that will be required to achieve all these big goals that we have,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

First on the agenda is expected to be renewing Trump\u2019s enormous 2017 tax cuts, due to expire next year. Their restoration would cost trillions of dollars.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Johnson did not commit to fully repealing Joe Biden\u2019s Inflation Reduction Act, passed in 2022.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He also said \u201cno coordinated policy\u201d had been established towards Barack Obama\u2019s Affordable Care Act, dubbed Obamacare. But he signalled an intention to tackle the issue by saying that \u201cinnovation and change is desperately needed\u201d in healthcare.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Trump tried to replace the act in the early months of his presidency in 2017 but failed to get his alternative legislation past the Senate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Johnson is also close to sending an invitation to the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, to address a joint session of Congress, an event he has predicted will happen before it goes into recess in August.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The invitation letter has already been signed by Johnson and Chuck Schumer, the Democratic Senate majority leader, who has criticised Netanyahu\u2019s prosecution of the war in Gaza and said Israel needs fresh elections and new leadership.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Having already secured the approval of Mitch McConnell, the Republican Senate minority leader, Johnson has passed the letter to the Democratic House minority leader, Hakeem Jeffries, for review in an effort to present the invitation as bipartisan and bicameral.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nevertheless, with the progressive wing of the Democratic party fiercely critical of Israel\u2019s Gaza offensive \u2013 which has so far killed more than 36,000 Palestinians \u2013 Netanyahu\u2019s appearance in Washington in an election season is likely to further exacerbate and expose deep Democratic divisions over the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, presenting a boon to Republicans.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On the legislative package, which would also include energy policy, Johnson said there were multiple priorities that could survive the \u201cByrd rule\u201d, named after the late Democratic senator Robert Byrd and which prohibits non-budgetary provisions being included in reconciliation legislation brought before the Senate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe\u2019re just looking at it from a very different, much more comprehensive approach,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd I think there\u2019s a lot of interest among House Republicans \u2013 and the outside groups of course \u2013 about what that can look like and what the potential is.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Source: https:\/\/www.rsn.org\/001\/mike-johnson-plans-republican-megabill-ready-to-push-through-if-trump-wins.html<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Robert Tait\/Guardian UK Mike Johnson said Republicans wasted time in 2017 because Trump\u2019s victory over Hillary Clinton took them by surprise. (photo: Shutterstock) 30 may 24 (RSN.org) House speaker plans far-reaching bill including tax cuts and border security to make Trump \u2018the most consequential president\u2019 Mike Johnson, the speaker of… Continue reading → <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34079"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34079"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34079\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":34080,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34079\/revisions\/34080"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34079"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34079"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34079"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}