Memo to Speaker Johnson: We can do both Ukraine aid and border enforcement
Quin Hillyer
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As the new House speaker, chosen almost out of the blue under historically bizarre circumstances, Mike Johnson (R-LA) suddenly must shift from a parochial focus to national responsibilities. This is especially true regarding foreign policy and national defense, on some areas of which his views are not those of the American majority.
The duty here is most urgent on the topics of Ukraine, Israel, and the U.S. border, all of which obviously are in major crises.
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The U.S. constitutional system, as historically implemented, gives preeminence on defense and foreign policy to the president, with Congress’s role being significant but still definitely secondary to that of the commander in chief. In that light, the so-called Hastert rule should not strictly apply, if at all, on key defense and foreign policy decisions. The Hastert rule, just 20 years old, is an ahistorical and informal policy in which a speaker doesn’t even allow a floor vote on a bill unless a majority of his party supports it. In other words, if a bill is favored by all 212 Democrats plus 110 Republicans, but opposed by 111 Republicans (a bare majority of the majority party), it would never see the light of day.
There is a certain dubious logic to the rule, but Republicans should be wary: If Democrats had applied it four decades ago, almost none of conservative Republican President Ronald Reagan’s economic initiatives would have passed. And, again, the Hastert rule should have even less sway on matters on the international stage, where a nation should speak with one voice. It makes no sense to let 111 of 433 current House members — just 25.63% — block the president’s foreign policy.
All of which is predicate for Johnson’s responsibilities regarding aid to Ukraine. Clear pluralities or majorities (depending on the poll) of Americans and of Congress support a strong aid package for Ukraine, which is what President Joe Biden has requested. The exact size and composition of such aid are rightly up for negotiation, but the general idea of support for Ukraine, against Russia’s barbarous invasion, remains popular. The only way, then, that Congress could block a reasonably robust aid package for Ukraine would be if Johnson tacitly or explicitly invokes the Hastert rule.
Johnson’s verbal stance on Ukraine has long been in flux, but he so regularly has voted against aid packages that the group Republicans for Ukraine gives him a grade of “F.” Several times, he has pushed the intellectually dishonest line that aid to Ukraine and funding for enforcement at the Mexican border is an either-or proposition, as if one priority takes money away from the other. The line is a damnable fiction. It’s akin to saying one can’t support both Social Security and Medicare at the same time, or that spending for veterans programs comes at the expense of weapons for active-duty military.
Unless and until the United States has a strict balanced budget requirement in its Constitution, budgeting is not a zero-sum game. Especially when the nation’s security interests are at stake, Congress’s job is to meet those security needs, period. This is, of course, not to say that Congress shouldn’t ensure that the money is spent wisely and efficiently; it’s just to say that if two security causes are both pressing, then support for one doesn’t necessitate opposition to the other. To say otherwise is to appeal to cheap and ignorant prejudices of certain parts of the electorate.
Biden wants to bundle a massive aid package for Ukraine and one for Israel with border-enforcement funding. If Johnson wants to unbundle them and vote on each item separately, that’s fine: Each should be able to stand on, and indeed by right reason deserves support on, its own. Each also should be open to constructive amendments, including amendments encouraging reasonable cost containment. But to play one of these items against the others is a cynical deception.
The border is in crisis. Record numbers of illegal immigrants keep pouring across. Women and children are held in unspeakably bad conditions. Dangerous immigrant criminals are walking free in the U.S. Cartels are overrunning American streets with fentanyl.
Israel is in crisis. Viciously attacked without provocation, its civilians tortured and butchered sometimes in not just monstrous but satanic fashion, this democratic and Western-friendly nation, a refuge of human rights in a region otherwise brutally repressive, deserves American aid to defend itself. As it does so, it also defends U.S. interests in trade, human rights, and intelligence against jihadists.
Ukraine is in crisis. Viciously attacked without provocation, its civilians tortured and butchered, its sovereign territory seized, this democratic and Western-friendly nation stands against an anti-American, authoritarian, murderous regime.
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All three causes merit assistance. If all three are successful, the U.S. will be so much better off, including financially, that the benefits will far outweigh the costs of the aid itself.
Johnson should not let a numerical minority of the House block support for these causes.