Speaker Johnson’s Abomination: Red Herrings, Red Ink And Repurposed Reconciliation

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The Washington-based GOP is no longer even remotely fit for purpose. That’s because in the modern world the job of the conservative party is always and everywhere to function as the nemesis of the state. That is, the political force that resolutely contests the inherent aggrandizement of the Welfare State and the Warfare State, and the expansionist opportunism of the self-proclaimed pro-government party which champions them in the halls of governance.

In actual practice, however, the GOP has become little more than America’s second pro-government party, owing to its capture by neocons, nativists and pork barrel-pandering careerists. The agendas of all three of these factions are essentially pro-state, where they function as generators of missions, meddling and mischief that push the boundaries of the state outwards, the budget upwards and the public debt relentlessly higher.

Indeed, as the U.S. national debt now sits on the cusp of $40 trillion and speeds forward inexorably on its way to $150 trillion by mid-century, we have watched with mounting dismay the final demise of the once and former Republican Party based on the old-time gospel. That is, balanced budgets, sound money, free markets, limited government and non-intervention abroad.

To be sure, these three “me too” factions differ in their preferred clients but share a common appetite for spending other people’s money and expanding federal power. And now in what amounts to an act of sheer sacrilege they are fixing to hijack the budget reconciliation instrument—a powerful tool to curtail spending and shrink the budget—in order to deploy it on behalf of $95 billion more of utterly wasteful and inappropriate Federal spending.

Not a single dime of that extra $95 billion—all of which goes to the hobby horse causes of the three pro-state GOP factions—is justifiable. That’s especially the case given that the Federal budget for FY 2026 is already hideously bloated at $7.5 trillion, which compares to less than $5.6 trillion of revenues and means that red ink for the year is already pushing $2.o trillion.