Mark Levin weighed in this morning on the vote for House Speaker which is coming on up Friday, explaining that the naysayers against Speaker Johnson have no candidate and that they risk “undermining the Trump agenda” with their opposition.
Levin gets behind Speaker Johnson, adding that President-elect Trump should get the Speaker he wants to push his agenda, and explains what the House and Senate really need to tackle if they are serious about America’s spending problem.
President Trump, Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan, and former Speaker Newt Gingrich endorse Mike Johnson for Speaker. I agree. As I’ve said from day one, President Trump should get the cabinet he believes will help him advance the agenda on which he won a landslide victory and for which we voted. The same with the choice of Speaker.
Moreover, in his own right, Mike Johnson is a man of deep faith and integrity. He will now have a Republican President and Senate with whom to collaborate and work, rather than saboteurs pushing a radical Left agenda, namely Schumer and Biden. It’ll still be difficult. The GOP’s majority consists of a handful of members who could meet in a telephone booth if we still had telephone booths. But there are also over 200 sizable egos with which to deal.
The alternative to Johnson? No one. Yet again, the most vocal opponents have no candidate, let alone a candidate who can get anywhere close to enough Republican votes to win the Speakership. Same old, same old. Thirty votes or so is what they can muster, which amounts to some 20% of the GOP House majority. The opposition is obviously doing something wrong. They also risk doing what they claim to stand against: undermining the Trump agenda, delivering programmatic and political victories to the Democrat Left, and infuriating the American people. Why these folks never have anything close to an actual strategy for victory in these Speaker challenges is beyond me. Maybe there’s no path? A full schedule of TV and radio appearances is not a plan. Neither is the political equivalent of Pickett’s charge.
Still, I respect many of these folks. I have good friends among them. But I’ll convey publicly what I’ve said to some directly. The biggest fiscal issue by far facing the nation respecting spending, borrowing, and unsustainable debt has nothing to do with most of what they’re talking about —discretionary spending. The grave problem are entitlements, and especially Social Security and Medicare, both of which are facing imminent bankruptcy. In fact, they are rarely mentioned. How can true fiscal hawks keep dodging this coming budgetary disaster?
Entitlements represent about 70% of spending. Discretionary spending, minus defense, is about 15% of the budget. Who among them is leading or willing to lead a righteous and critical effort to reform these programs? The fight over discretionary spending is certainly important but it’s a drop in the bucket compared to entitlements. If you’re serious about the debt then you need to get serious about reforming entitlements. But most are not. It’s easier to oppose Mike Johnson for Speaker
More when I return to radio next week.