Wisconsin Republicans help pass doomed Israel aid bill with IRS cuts, setting up fight over Ukraine support

WASHINGTON – Wisconsin House Republicans on Thursday helped their party pass a standalone aid package for Israel with accompanying funding cuts to the Internal Revenue Service — a measure doomed in the Senate that sets up a battle over support for Ukraine.

All six Wisconsin Republicans backed the proposal to send $14.3 billion to Israel to aid in its fight against Hamas in exchange for an offsetting funding cut to the IRS. But Democrats, who overwhelmingly support addressing both Israel and Ukraine together, largely rejected the bill. It passed on a 226-196 vote, with both Wisconsin Democrats voting in opposition.

Twelve Democrats voted for the measure.

The proposal is dead on arrival in the Democratic-held Senate. Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said he would not bring the package up for a vote, noting it does not include support for Ukraine, humanitarian aid to civilians in Gaza or assistance to Taiwan in the Indo-Pacific, and President Joe Biden threatened to veto it. Schumer called the clawback of IRS funding a "poison pill."

"The Senate will not take up the House GOP's deeply flawed proposal," Schumer said on the Senate floor Thursday, noting the chamber will work on what he described as a bipartisan proposal. "It still mystifies me that when the world is in crisis and we need to help Israel respond to Hamas, the GOP thought it was a good idea to tie Israel aid to a hard-right proposal that will increase the deficit and is totally partisan."

Biden late last month asked Congress to approve a $105 billion package that includes aid for Israel, Ukraine and Taiwan, as well as resources for the U.S.'s southern border. Still, newly elected House Speaker Mike Johnson of Louisiana forced a vote on the standalone Israel package as many members of his conference, including some from Wisconsin, have soured on providing continued support to Ukraine since Russia invaded the country in February 2022.

"The U.S. should not send another penny to Ukraine," Wisconsin Rep. Tom Tiffany wrote on the platform X this week. "Especially when there is NO accountability for where the money is going." Tiffany and Wisconsin Republican Reps. Derrick Van Orden and Scott Fitzgerald voted against a $300 million aid package to Ukraine in late September.

"Joe Biden tried to force Congress to couple Ukraine and Israel aid together all so he could send another BLANK CHECK to Ukraine," Tiffany added in another post after the House passed the bill. "@SpeakerJohnson said no."

The House GOP's push for the Israel-only aid package also puts them at odds with their counterparts in the Senate. Republican Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, among his party's most outspoken supporters of continued aid to Ukraine, maintained his support for a package that combines Ukraine and Israel aid, calling the threats facing the U.S. and its allies "intertwined."

"Russia would love to see Iranian-backed terrorists in the Middle East weaken America and our allies," McConnell said on the Senate floor this week, referring to Hamas. "Iran would love to see a Russian victory in Ukraine that divides the West and deepens its own defense cooperation with Moscow."

In a separate press conference, McConnell said he and Schumer are "conceptually" on the same page when it comes to linking Israel and Ukraine aid with support for Taiwan and provisions related to the southern border. But he acknowledged Democrats would need to agree to "serious" border protections "in order to get our people on board."

Wisconsin Republicans, meanwhile, have for weeks expressed a desire to separate aid for the two embattled allies.

Rep. Mike Gallagher, chairman of the select committee on the Chinese Communist Party, suggested last month that the House should tie any Ukraine supplement to a border security package and include Taiwan assistance in the government's defense spending bill.

"Let’s do Israel now because there’s support for it," Gallagher told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel in October. "Then we can consider a big compromise on border security and Ukraine."

Just when or how an aid package to the U.S. allies will make it out Congress is not yet clear. The Senate has yet to bring a combined package to the floor, and Johnson, the House speaker, before the vote Thursday reiterated his push to slash IRS funding in order to offset the cost of aid — a move the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office this week said would add about $12.5 billion to the federal deficit over the next decade by impacting revenue collection.

"Ukraine will come in short order," said Johnson, who has opposed Ukraine aid but will likely need to adjust his stance now that he leads the House. "It will come next. You've heard me say that we want to pair border security with Ukraine because I think we can get bipartisan agreement on both of those matters."

Van Orden about a half hour before the vote told the Journal Sentinel he was supportive of the IRS cuts and dismissed the CBO report as "invalid."

"If you can be fiscally responsible and aid really anybody, in this case the people of Israel, why would you not take that option," Van Orden said. "This is a very viable option."

Gallagher Thursday night issued a statement that made no mention of the domestic spending cuts. He called the House-passed bill "just a start" and demanded the White House impose "a maximum pressure campaign" on Hamas and Iran that includes financial sanctions.

Democrats on the House floor Thursday, however, railed against Republicans for making government funding cuts a condition of supporting Ukraine. At one point, Maryland Rep. Steny Hoyer, the former Democratic majority leader, told Republican Majority Leader Steve Scalise on the floor that he believed the standalone package would pass with sweeping bipartisan support if it did not have the conditional spending cut.

The slash to IRS funding would not accomplish Republicans' goal of offsetting the aid cost, Hoyer told Scalise, citing the CBO report.

"The one thing we shouldn't do no matter where you stand on this is play games, and that's the one thing we are doing in the House of Representatives right now," Madison Democrat Mark Pocan told the Journal Sentinel. "This is a risky gameplan given what's happening on the world stage. Them playing games and even more stupidly (targeting) a funding source that actually costs more money is pretty ridiculous."

Wisconsin Republican Sen. Ron Johnson, for his part, threw his support behind the House leader's plan this week. And he cast doubt, without providing an explanation, on the CBO's projection that cutting funding for the IRS to offset the aid package would balloon the federal deficit.

"I know the little gnomes at the CBO are going to say that," Johnson said. "I don’t believe it at all."

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This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Wisconsin Republicans help pass doomed Israel aid bill with IRS cuts