The Summerland Advocate-Messenger - Reliable, Trustworthy Reporting, Capturing The Heartbeat Of Our Community

With the election of Speaker Mike Johnson, the House is back to work. We certainly have our work cut out for us as we fulfill our responsibilities to the American people. Speaker Johnson hit the ground running to responsibly fund our priorities, including our support for Israel.

Supporting our greatest ally in the Middle East as they battle the ruthless enemy that is Hamas is an urgent priority. Regionally, Israel is in a precarious position and our support for them is vital as their neighbors make clear their desire to wipe Israel off the map.

Immediately following the election of Speaker Johnson, the House acted swiftly to pass a resolution expressing our support of Israel and its right to defend itself from Hamas’ sudden and barbaric attacks on Oct. 7. Before and after these horrendous attacks, Hamas has been abundantly clear its goal is total annihilation of Israel and the Jewish people.

I’m pleased Congress acted this week to bolster humanitarian and military support for Israel. To help offset the cost, we included a provision in the bill to rescind the IRS enforcement dollars included Democrats’ Inflation Act. If this sounds familiar it’s because my bill to rescind these funds – the Family and Small Business Taxpayer Protection Act – was the first bill passed by the House in the 118th Congress. The Family and Small Business Taxpayer Protection Act was supported by every House Republican but, unfortunately, the Senate has yet to take up the bill. I’m hopeful Democrats in the House and Senate will take the opportunity to take these funds from IRS and instead use them to responsibly support Israel.

As Ukraine continues to defend itself against Vladimir Putin’s invasion, we must carefully define our objectives and ensure taxpayer dollars are wisely and properly utilized. This is why I recently joined several of my colleagues, led by Rep. Mike Garcia, in sending a letter to President Biden and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin outlining why it’s important to address Ukraine and Israel funding as separate questions. The letter outlines 12 key questions the administration must address regarding ongoing American support for Ukraine, including a defined win strategy, cost estimates, the effectiveness of sanctions on Russia, maintaining accountability for the use of resources and ensuring our commitments to Taiwan, Israel, and other strategic partnerships are not compromised.

Looking ahead, Congress must also finish our work on appropriations. Our best available avenue to address wasteful discretionary spending is by returning to fiscal sanity when considering the 12 annual appropriations bills. As of this week, the House has passed seven of those 12 bills and I look forward to finishing this important work in the coming weeks.Additionally, I am a strong supporter of a bill, the Fiscal Commission Act, to create a bipartisan, 16-member commission to implement policies to reduce the deficit, cut spending and improve our nation’s long-term fiscal outlook.

Shortly after he was elected, I joined 60 of my House GOP colleagues in a letter to Speaker Johnson urging prioritization of Farm Bill reauthorization. After meeting with the House Agriculture Committee last week, the speaker expressed his desire to get the Farm Bill passed. Realistically, with the end-of-year deadline fast approaching, Congress should be prepared for a temporary Farm Bill extension to ensure these important programs do not lapse while we finish our work on reauthorization.

The election of Speaker Johnson is a great step forward for the House and our country. While our challenges are great, I’m glad the House has gotten back to business for the American people