Time is now, Mr. Speaker
Shortly after becoming House speaker in late October, Mike Johnson sat down for an interview with Fox News’ Sean Hannity and declared, “We can’t allow Vladimir Putin to prevail in Ukraine, because I don’t believe it would stop there, and it would probably encourage and empower China to perhaps make a move on Taiwan. We have these concerns. We’re not going to abandon” Ukraine.
From that, you might have expected Johnson (R-La.) to get a Ukraine aid bill passed in November or December. Or January. Here we are, in March, and no aid package for Ukraine has passed the House.
In November, Johnson talked up the idea of using more than $300 billion in seized Russian assets to help Ukraine. “It would be pure poetry to fund the Ukrainian war effort with Russian assets,” he told The New York Post. Nothing has been done on that front either. In that October interview with Hannity, Johnson also pledged, “We’re going to bring forward a stand-alone Israel funding measure over $14 billion.” In early February, the House failed to pass a $17.6 billion stand-alone funding bill for Israel because it was brought up under a measure that required a two-thirds majority.
In January, Johnson met with Taiwan’s new top U.S. diplomat, Alexander Yui, and vowed to stand “shoulder to shoulder” with Taiwan as it seeks to defend itself against Chinese military pressure. “We certainly want to help in the defense of Taiwan—it’s very important to us,” Johnson said. “We want to deter the Chinese Communist Party and any military provocation.”
But the House hasn’t passed any aid package for Taiwan.
Johnson said he wants legislation to secure the U.S. southern border and enforce immigration laws more tightly—a perfectly reasonable priority, considering the chaos and strain on resources that migrants are forcing upon cities from coast to coast.
Yet when Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.) came out with his joint proposal for foreign aid and border security, Johnson rejected it out of hand without making a counteroffer. The whole thing died, and it was back to square one.
The House speaker keeps saying he wants to get major priorities passed … and yet it keeps not happening. Johnson’s leadership approach has been described as “listen, then decide,” which sounds nice in theory, but in practice, so far it has been closer to “listen, then decide not to pass anything.”
Yes, Johnson is hampered by having only a tiny six-seat Republican majority to work with, but there are plenty of Democratic votes in the House willing to support aid to Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan.
At some point, though, if you want to do something, you make like the Nike slogan and just do it. You don’t stand around talking about how much you want to do it. What’s the point of controlling the House if you can’t pass any legislation?