Finally, a speaker

With the support of all four members of Arkansas’ congressional delegation, we finally have a speaker of the House.

The election of Speaker Mike Johnson from down south in Louisiana drew a standing ovation after Rep. Steve Womack from Arkansas cast his vote. Joking as if it were the NFL draft, Womack said, “With the 217th pick in the race for speaker, the

[representative] from Arkansas selects

Mike Johnson.”

Womack’s vote was noteworthy because he had been one of 20-25 holdouts who refused to support the previous nominee, Rep. Jim Jordan, and he had been getting quite a bit of airtime because of it. An institutionalist, he’s been openly worried about Congress’ dysfunction. Days before the vote, he had told CNN’S Jake Tapper that what was happening was “junior high stuff.”

Like most Americans, I had never heard of Mike Johnson before this week, and I know nothing about him that you can’t easily look up online. He is an outspoken Christian who is strongly pro-life and is not a supporter of the LGBT movement. He is an ally of former President Donald Trump who helped Trump with his efforts following the 2020 elections and did not vote to certify the election results. He has voted against appropriations bills aiding Ukraine, and he supports aiding Israel.

Trump’s support was a big part of why he was elected. Another big reason was that Republicans knew they had to stop fighting. Womack told the Arkansas Democratgazette that Johnson “flies a bit under the radar.”

“I think it’s logical to say he’s benefiting from the fact that we’re tired of this,” Womack said. “We’ve got to move on. He’s benefiting from a weary Republican majority struggling to find the right person.”

So now we finally have a functioning U.S. House of Representatives, which despite the jokes we all might make to the contrary, is important, especially now with what’s been going on in Israel. Also, Congress must fund the government by Nov. 17, or we’ll have a shutdown.

The last time it faced such a deadline, Mccarthy committed the cardinal sin of working with Democrats and became the first U.S. House speaker ever to be deposed. The partisan breakdown hasn’t changed. It’s still 221 Republicans and 212 Democrats, so it only takes a handful of Republican dissenters to stall anything.

All of this is occurring amidst the recent news that the U.S. government ran a deficit of $1.7 trillion this last fiscal year. Uncle Sam spent $6.1 trillion but only collected $4.4 trillion in revenues. To put that into perspective, that’s the numerical equivalent of a household bringing in $44,000 but spending $61,000. It’s not a perfect analogy because countries are not households, but this much is applicable: No entity, big or small, can indefinitely spend more than it collects.

These annual deficits add up. The national debt as of Sept. 30 was $33.2 trillion. A year earlier, it was $30.9 trillion. As late as 2008, it was “only” $10 trillion. Interest on the national debt is becoming one of the largest federal government expenditures. Taxpayers are paying interest to borrow money from many places, including China, and also paying for a military meant to defend the United States against adversaries around the world, including China.

This is the kind of vexing problem that would require elected officials to rise above partisan politics and make difficult choices. Members of Congress would have to cut spending on popular programs and also increase revenues somehow. That’s a nice way of saying some of us, or many of us, will have to pay more in taxes.

But such displays of statesmanship and political courage seem very far off these days when the House can barely elect a speaker. At least that’s been done, and hopefully now Congress can keep the government from shutting down while deciding what kind of support to give Israel and Ukraine.

It will all cost money the U.S. government doesn’t have, but that’s a problem to be solved another day, as always.

Steve Brawner is a syndicated columnist published in 16 outlets in Arkansas. Email him at brawnersteve@mac.com. Follow him on Twitter at @stevebrawner.