If Republicans get their way to support interests abroad — the IRS budget will take a hit worth billions of dollars.
On Monday, the House Rules Committee proposed a $14 billion package to help bolster Israel's military as it continues warring with Hamas, and the monies would be slashed from the Internal Revenue Service to stop its efforts to probe deep-pocketed tax cheats, according to the Washington Post.
"I understand their priority is to bulk up the IRS," Johnson said in an interview with Fox News. "But I think if you put this to the American people and they weigh the two needs, I think they're going to say standing with Israel and protecting the innocent over there is in our national interest and is a more immediate need than IRS agents."
The legislation comes as President Joe Biden offered to bankroll the allied country with about the same sum in his Israel Aid Plan, but it didn't come with a cleaving IRS budget.
It also comes after some conservatives since January have gone on the offensive against the arm of government tasked with collecting funds from all U.S. taxpayers.
The countermeasure of finding a way to pay for the theatre in both Gaza and Ukraine is one of the first lines in the sand drawn by newly minted House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) since he took over the gig about a month after Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) was ousted by a contingent in his own party.
“It becomes the piggy bank the Democrats have accepted already,” Grover Norquist, an anti-tax proponent at Americans for Tax Reform, told the outlet.
Republicans are seeking to make marked cuts to the IRS after moving to undo the IRS expansion dictated in Biden's Inflation Reduction Act last year of which they already rescinded $20 billion from the original $80 billion price tag that was established as part of a compromise to raise the country's debt ceiling.
Meanwhile, Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-NY) said Democrats are attempting to hammer out a bipartisan deal with Republicans.
“We can’t wait for the House, who knows what will happen there," he rhetorically asked last week, according to Politico. "The Senate will go first. It’s my hope that if the Senate can move quickly and pass something with strong bipartisan support we can importune the House to act."
