WASHINGTON () U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., lauded the Republican Party’s passage of President Trump’s sweeping tax bill, calling it an example of what a “unified government” can deliver.
“The beauty of unified government is this is exactly how it can work and how it’s supposed to work,” said Johnson. “You have an interaction between the executive and legislative branches, because that’s what’s best for the people, and that coordination is going to yield great results for the folks.”
The tight roll call, 218-214, came at a potentially high political cost, with two Republicans joining all Democrats opposed. GOP leaders worked overnight, and the president himself leaned on a handful of skeptics to drop their opposition and send the bill to him to sign into law. Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., delayed voting for more than eight hours by seizing control of the floor with a record-breaking speech against the bill.
“What’s good for Louisiana is good for America,” said Johnson. “We’ve got great tax policy here. I think they’re going to feel this pretty quickly. Wages will rise. I think household income will go up. I think the job participation rate will increase dramatically. I think unemployment will be low.”
To help offset the lost tax revenue in the bill, the package includes $1.2 trillion in cutbacks to Medicaid health care and food stamps, largely by imposing new work requirements, including for some parents and older people, and a major rollback of green energy tax credits.
“We’re going to duplicate what we did in the first Trump administration … we had one of the greatest economies in the history of the world, and we’re going to do that again, except this time, much more comprehensively,” said Johnson.
The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimates the package will add $3.3 trillion to the deficit over the decade, and 11.8 million more people will go without health coverage.
Democrats were unified against the bill, calling it a tax giveaway to the rich paid for on the backs of the working class and most vulnerable in society.
