Mike Johnson pours cold water on calls to hike taxes on the rich, despite Trump telling GOPers hes open to it

House Speaker Mike Johnson is pouring cold water on the prospect of Republicans hiking taxes on the rich to help pay for President Trump’s “big, beautiful” agenda package.Despite Trump previously telling Republicans that he is open to a tax increase for the wealthy, Johnson (R-La.) argued that he’d prefer to find payfors elsewhere and underscored that the GOP needs to hustle on finishing the Trump agenda bill due to bond market jitters.“I’m not a big fan of doing that,” Johnson told Fox News’ “Sunday Morning Futures” when asked about ratcheting up taxes on the rich.“We’re the Republican Party and we’re for tax reduction for everyone.

So, I mean, that’s a general principle that we always try to abide by.”Republicans are staring down a difficult arithmetic problem to fund Trump’s marquee agenda package, which includes tax cuts, stepped-up energy supply, border security and bolstered defense spending.Fiscal hawks are adamant that the agenda package doesn’t add to the deficit, but moderates are skittish about deep cuts to programs like Medicaid, creating a predicament for Johnson, given the slim GOP control of the House and Senate.

“We’re going to protect Medicare, Social Security and Medicaid,” Johnson stressed.“At the same time, we have to root out fraud, waste, and abuse.”About 61% of the roughly $6.75 trillion federal budget is mandatory spending such as Medicare, Social Security and Medicaid.

Another 13% is interest on the debt.Given that Republicans want to increase defense spending in the agenda package, that leaves less than $1 trillion of annual discretionary spending to cut based on fiscal year 2024 spending levels.House Republicans were hoping to cut a minimum of $1.5 trillion over 10 years.

And between the two chambers, Republicans had been eyeing somewhere between $5.8 trillion and $4.5 trillion worth of tax cuts and spending increases (for border security and defense) over the same period.Tax hikes on the ric...