Speaker Mike Johnson explains GOP plans to cut costs for Americans

Exclusive: Making life more affordable for Americans will be a key part of the remaining agenda for House Republicans this Congress, House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-Los Angeles, said Friday.

In an interview with Fox News Digital, the House leader acknowledged there was a “short window of time” for lawmakers to be in D.C. before the end of this year, but said they would work to advance a number of goals, including President Donald Trump’s “affordability” agenda.

“We have a lot of executive orders that we want to continue to write through the end of the year. And we’re still doing regulatory reform to end the Biden-era regulations. And we did some of that this week,” Johnson said.

“There are a lot of initiatives on the table, things we need to do, and time is short to do it. But we’re really optimistic about the ideas that we’ll be putting forward over the next few weeks and in the next months on lowering the cost of living.”

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“Affordability” was “the buzzword of the day,” he said.

“We have the affordability agenda, as the president has promoted, and we have to do that seriously. Health care is part of that. But it’s just costs across the board,” Johnson said.

He blamed the policies of the previous Democratic administration for the high costs of living seen today, arguing that former President Joe Biden approved policies that led to higher inflation.

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“We the people rightly rose up against that and were given power back in January,” Johnson said. “But the economy is a very complex thing, you can’t change everything in one week. It takes time.”

The beginning of Biden’s term was marked by record high inflation, but that has subsided somewhat as the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic slowly subside. However, throughout his four years, consumer price increases outpaced average wage growth, according to A Texas A&M University analysis.

Republicans promised to lower the cost of living when they took power in Washington earlier this year. The hallmark of this, Johnson said, is Trump’s big, beautiful law, which has since been renamed the “tax cut for working families.”

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Johnson said: “By the time we get into the first and second quarters of next year, as Chancellor Besent said, we should see an economic boom because all those factors will come into play. Taxes will be lower, there will be no tax on tips and overtime, lower taxes on older people. And then there will be more investment because we have all the pro-growth policies and tax policies that will allow job creators, entrepreneurs, risk-takers and innovators to do what they do.”

“Everything I just described will happen in time, and it will happen. So we’re very optimistic about it.”

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Republicans are also expected to spend the next few weeks working on a health care package aimed at lowering the high premiums facing many Americans, while also seeking to fix what they view as a deeply flawed Obamacare system.

Several House committees are also expected to introduce legislation in the coming weeks focused on lowering energy costs, including reforming an outdated system to allow new energy projects.