Johnson Faces Battle for the Speaker's Gavel

Johnson Urges Against ‘Palace Drama’ Ahead of Speaker Vote

The 119th Congress will convene tomorrow, with Republicans looking to make the most of their unified control of the House, the Senate and — soon — the White House. Yet it’s not completely clear whether Republicans will stand behind Speaker Mike Johnson. Much as they did two years ago, some Republicans are debating whether they should keep their leader or try to find someone new to wield the gavel.

Johnson faces some continuing skepticism and opposition from a handful of members in his own conference, despite having received the endorsement of President-elect Donald Trump this week — and despite the obvious lack of any viable alternative. “Speaker Mike Johnson is a good, hard working, religious man,” Trump wrote in a social media post on Monday. “He will do the right thing, and we will continue to WIN.”

Johnson’s extremely narrow majority means he has almost no margin for defections. Republicans are expected to have a 219-215 majority when the House votes tomorrow afternoon to elect a speaker, in which case Johnson will need 218 votes, assuming all House members are present and voting for someone by name. And Rep. Thomas Massie, the obstreperous Kentucky Republican, has already made clear he won’t vote for Johnson, no matter the political repercussions. “If they thought I had no Fs to give before, I definitely have no Fs to give now,” Massie said, per The Wall Street Journal.

Massie told the Journal that Johnson may want to enact Trump’s agenda, but “he’s not that good at it.” The congressman pointed to Trump’s push at the end of last year to suspend the debt limit as part of a bill to fund the government and avoid a shutdown. Johnson “lacked either the situational awareness or the bravery to tell Trump that it wasn’t doable,” Massie said. Instead, the legislation that included Trump’s desired debt limit fix failed, with 38 Republicans voting against it. Lawmakers later passed a compromise bill without addressing the debt ceiling.

No time for ‘palace drama’: Johnson has been working to make sure other hard-line Republican wild cards don’t join with Massie. In an interview with Fox News on Thursday morning, he emphasized the opportunity the party now has, with control of the White House and both chambers of Congress.

“We will get this done,” Johnson told the “Fox & Friends” morning show. “We live in very serious times. We cannot afford any palace drama here. We have got to get the Congress started, which begins tomorrow, and we have to get immediately to work. We have to certify the election of President Donald J. Trump on January 6, on Monday, and we have many important things pressing on us right so, so there’s no time to waste. We have to stay unified.”

Republicans are likely to feel pressure to fall in line in time to certify Trump’s win, but achieving that unity might take more than one ballot.

Johnson acknowledged that he may only be able to lose one or two votes but expressed confidence that he’ll be able to get the needed support — and he indicated Thursday that he’s hopeful he’ll do it on the first ballot.

Before the votes are cast, Johnson continues to have meetings with holdouts. He has reportedly sought to avoid cutting backroom deals to win over opponents — the type of agreements that weakened former Speaker Kevin McCarthy, who needed four days and 15 votes to secure the gavel. But Johnson is reportedly willing to make some concessions, and he told Fox that his conversations thus far have focused on “process reforms.” The Washington Post reports those reforms involve “efforts to ensure House Republicans can quickly pass conservative legislation while also cutting spending.”

Among the changes for the new Congress, the new 36-page rules package set to be voted on this week says that a motion to oust the speaker will now require the support of nine members of the majority party in order to get a vote. Two years ago, McCarthy had agreed to allow any individual member to bring up such a vote. (Democrats are upset about the change, arguing that it shields the speaker from being accountable to the entire chamber. “Instead of electing a Speaker of the House, they have decided to elect a Speaker of the Republican Conference—held hostage by their most extreme members,” Rep. Jim McGovern, the top Democrat on the Rules Committee, said in a statement.)

The bottom line: The House can’t do anything without electing a speaker, so tune in for the vote tomorrow afternoon.

Another $20 Billion Cut from IRS Funding

The battle over enhanced funding for the IRS took a new twist in December as Republican lawmakers set up another $20 billion cut for the tax agency in the short-term funding deal that prevented a government shutdown.

The Inflation Reduction Act signed into law by President Joe Biden in 2022 provided an extra $80 billion over 10 years for the IRS, with the funds intended to help modernize the agency’s technology, boost customer service and strengthen compliance efforts. But as part of the 2023 budget agreement, Congress bowed to Republican pressure for a cut in that funding, clawing back $20 billion; under the terms of the short-term budget deal that reduction will almost certainly occur again, bringing the total loss in IRS funding to roughly $40 billion.

As The Washinton Post’s Jacob Bogage and Shannon Najmabadi explain, the additional $20 billion cut will likely occur because of the way lawmakers passed the short-term government funding legislation, which runs through March 14. “When Congress approved a stopgap funding bill, called a continuing resolution, all the existing policy from the previous fiscal year was carried forward unless new text was specifically added to the bill to change it,” they wrote. “There was no language in the bill to undo last year’s cut, so it repeated in the new law.”

The Republican-controlled Congress is expected to make the funding cut permanent when they vote on a full-year budget in March.

Democrats said they tried to insert language eliminating the cut into the short-term funding measure. “I fought very hard on this issue,” Rep. Rosa DeLauro, the top Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee, told the Post. But the funding fell by the wayside during negotiations, with Republicans viewing the reduction as a top priority.

Anti-tax activists are happy with the outcome. Michael Palicz, director of tax policy at Americans for Tax Reform, said the enhanced IRS funding was a “declared shakedown on taxpayers” that would only help Democrats pay for more government spending. “Republicans have taken a huge chunk out of this before, and we have a chance to do that again,” he told the Post.

The White House warned that the funding cut will cost the government in the long run, since a weaker IRS means more cheating and lower tax revenues.

Deputy Treasury Secretary Wally Adeyemo said in December that if the $20 billion cut occurs, the IRS will run out of enforcement funding in the current fiscal year and taxpayer service funding the year after.

“Ultimately, unless Congress provides the IRS with certainty with regard to resources in the near term, you could see a dramatic fall-off in our ability to do the two things that I think matter most, which is raise revenue — especially from those people who are not paying on a regular basis, wealthy individuals and corporations — but also a dramatic fall-off in customer service,” he said, per Federal News Network.

The revenue losses are expected to be significant. Biden administration officials say the extra funding cuts would result in an additional $140 billion being added to the national debt over the next decade.

Fiscal News Roundup

• Mike Johnson’s House Speaker Bid Looks Shaky Despite Trump Endorsement – Washington Post
• Johnson Doesn’t Have the Votes to Remain Speaker. But His Allies Insist It’s Trending His Way – Politico
• Conservatives Seek Commitments as Johnson Scrambles for Speaker Votes – The Hill
• Johnson Allies Warn That a Speakership Battle Could Delay Trump’s Victory Certification – CNN
• Thomas Massie Needs Backup to Remove Mike Johnson – Wall Street Journal
• Trump Throws More Weight Behind Johnson's Speakership Bid – Politico
• Speaker Johnson Faces Narrowest House Majority in Nearly 100 Years – CNN
• Democrats Rage as Johnson Restricts Their Ability to Oust Him – Axios
• New Year, New Congress, Old Problem: The Debt Ceiling – Marketplace
• From Minimum Wage Increases to Medicare Drug Costs Cap, These New Laws Are Now in Effect – CNN
• SEC Writes Off $10 Billion in Fines It Can’t Collect – Wall Street Journal
• Treasury Wins Back Role in ‘Eventual Release’ of Fannie, Freddie – Bloomberg
• How Health Insurers Racked Up Billions in Extra Payments From Medicare Advantage – Wall Street Journal
• Carville on Harris Loss: ‘It is and It Always Will Be the Economy, Stupid’ – The Hill

Views and Analysis

• How a Long Speaker Fight Could Impact Trump’s Ability to Start His Next Term – Kyle Cheney and Katherine Tully-McManus, Politico
• Could Trump Face Another Early Setback in House Speaker’s Race? – Aaron Blake, Washington Post
• How Mike Johnson Could Lose the House Speaker Vote, Explained – Lindsay Wise, Wall Street Journal
• If Johnson Can’t Win Speaker Election, D.C. Grinds to a Halt – Ed Kilgore, New York
• Ron Johnson: Fiscal Sanity Isn’t Too Much to Hope for This Year – Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI), Wall Street Journal
• Congress Must Deliver President Trump's Agenda Quickly – Reps. Mike Johnson, Steve Scalise, Tom Emmer, Fox News
• The Debt Ceiling Is Back, but No Need to Worry – Yet – Tami Luhby, CNN
• Why Trump Is Antsy About the Coming Debt Ceiling Fight – Ben Werschkul, Yahoo Finance
• Does the United States Need a Debt Limit? – Sheldon H. Jacobson, The Hill
• 10 Policies Republicans Could Use to Pay for New Tax Cuts – Jacob Bogage, Washington Post
• The Fed Faces Trump’s Tariffs – Steven B. Kamin, National Review
• The U.S. Dollar Is Riding High. Trump Could Put an End to All That – Matt Peterson, Barron’s
• Biden Faltered on Bird Flu. Here’s How Trump Can Course-Correct – Luciana Borio and Scott Gottlieb, Washington Post
• Jimmy Carter’s Economic Legacy – Christopher Simmonds, American Prospect
• Congress — Yes, Even the Members You Dislike — Should Get a Pay Raise – Washington Post Editorial Board