WASHINGTON (AP) — Speaker Mike Johnson on Tuesday laid out a policy agenda should Republicans win the majority next year, extending tax cuts passed when Donald Trump was president, shrinking the size of the federal workforce and giving parents more choices about where they can. send their children to school.
Johnson highlighted five key policy points during a speech at the New York Stock Exchange. He talked about expanding and building on Trump’s tax cuts, confronting China, boosting oil and gas production, expanding school choice and reducing the size and scope of the federal government.
“The survival of the American dream depends on our victory,” Johnson said.
The Speaker and Republicans in the House of Representatives are fighting this election season to maintain their narrow majority in the House of Representatives, with only a handful of seats remaining. Republicans are hopeful that a Trump victory over Vice President Kamala Harris in the election will help them win majorities in the House of Representatives and the Senate, which would give them unified control of Washington and the United States for the first time since 2018. ability to implement a sweeping legislative agenda. .
Against the backdrop of the campaign, Johnson gave a bleak picture of the economy under President Joe Biden, although the economy continues to grow at a solid pace, inflation is easing and the unemployment rate remains low by historical standards. He spoke to an audience of Wall Street investors, traders and others who have witnessed the stock markets reach record highs in recent days.
But Johnson said that as he travels around the country, he encounters entrepreneurs on the brink of collapse because of high inflation, high taxes and overregulation. And he said he has met mothers and fathers who have resorted to donating plasma and setting up crowdfunding pages so they don’t lose their homes.
“Our great people are hanging in there now, despite so many unprecedented challenges, but many can’t afford it much longer,” Johnson said.
The first policy priority he outlined was better tax benefits, specifically mentioning immediate spending on research and development costs. He also mentioned the need for a “strong” child tax credit, though he did not provide specific figures. He said Republican tax policy “respects the dignity of work, and it doesn’t pay people more if they stay out of the labor market.”
Trump has planned a series of tax cuts during his campaign, including extending the expiring provisions of his 2017 overhaul and not taxing tips and Social Security. Outside experts say the tax cuts proposed by Trump and Democratic candidate Kamala Harris would cause debt to rise even faster than under current law.
Doing more to confront China and rolling back environmental regulations are a common denominator for Republicans that Johnson embraced in his speech. On education, he said millions of Americans have the option to send their children to a school that best suits their needs, and “Republicans want to expand that choice so that every American has that opportunity.”
Johnson also emphasized reducing debt by reducing the size of the federal government, saying “we are going to reduce the size of the federal workforce and eliminate a long list of non-essential jobs through the federal bureaucracy.”
“It is difficult to push back the entrenched bureaucracy and confront the system that has caused the decline. It is a difficult task, but it is a task that can be accomplished,” Johnson said.
