November 06, 2023

The US House GOP Israel Bill Is Not Serious

By: Jonathan Lord

The House majority-passed Israel bill is fundamentally unserious. It makes a partisan mockery of support for Israel and fiscal responsibility.

On November 2, Speaker Johnson’s supplemental bill to support Israel passed the House largely along party lines. The $14.3 billion Israel aid bill is neither a good-faith effort to support Israel in its moment of crisis, nor is it fiscally responsible, as he suggested in a press conference yesterday.

By tying support for Israel’s defense to a completely unrelated, and ultimately self-defeating budget cut, the House majority demonstrates it is unserious about supporting America’s closest partner in the Middle East.

It’s a supplemental budget bill, yet contains a base budget offset, rescinding $14.3 billion in unexecuted funding from the IRS. Last Thursday, Speaker Johnson argued the bill is fiscally responsible because the outlay of money is “paid for” by the IRS cut. However, it’s a specious argument. Cutting IRS funding actually increases the deficit, because it hollows out the federal government’s ability to collect owed tax revenue.

Don’t just take my word for it. The Congressional Budget Office scored the bill as adding almost $27b to the national debt over the next 10 years. The budget cut worsens the national debt. A clean supplemental bill would actually cost the American taxpayer less.

Read the full article and more from The Times of Israel.

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