Source: United States House of Representatives – Representative Mike Johnson (LA-04)
WASHINGTON — This weekend, Speaker Johnson published an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal highlighting House Republicans’ historic accomplishments during the first session of the 119th Congress.
“Even with the slimmest of congressional majorities and historic obstruction from Democrats, President Trump and Republicans have kept our promises, restored order and laid the groundwork for an extraordinary new year—from containing the border crisis and stabilizing inflation to securing historic tax, trade and peace deals,” Speaker Johnson wrote.
Read the op-ed here or below:
Op-ed: House Republicans Had a Great Year
In 2025 we passed tax cuts, helped businesses expand, and repealed harmful regulations.
Speaker Mike Johnson
Wall Street Journal
December 28, 2025
In the final days of this year, 211 House Democrats voted against House Republicans’ bill to address the rising cost of healthcare. That wouldn’t be remarkable except that in 2017, 196 Democrats, including the current minority leader, urged President Trump to adopt almost identical reforms.
The Lower Health Care Premiums for All Americans Act does exactly what it suggests. The bill would expand healthcare access and reduces health-insurance premiums by an estimated 11%, while saving taxpayers tens of billions of dollars. These are bipartisan policies by definition.
So what gives? The answer has less to do with policy than with politics. As their record-breaking shutdown made clear, today’s Democratic leadership is interested not in finding solutions but in preserving issues for November.
For all we hear of “affordability,” it was the Biden-Democrat tax-and-spend agenda that made American life significantly less affordable. Take healthcare. Premiums have soared, quality has plummeted, and fraud has become rampant ever since ObamaCare took effect 12 years ago.
Today’s Democrats offer nothing new: more government, higher taxes and costly bailouts for insurance companies—paid for, as always, by the taxpayer. Has any national Democrat offered any policy solution that involves anything else?
House Republicans have a different approach. We start by asking the right question: What’s driving the problem?
In one of the most productive first years of any Congress in our lifetimes, we’ve gone to work answering that question. House Republicans passed 441 bills. We voted to codify 70 of President Trump’s America First executive orders, clawed back billions in wasteful spending through rescissions, and repealed 23 harmful Biden-era regulations with the Congressional Review Act.
Close observers of Congress may also note something that didn’t happen. For the third consecutive year, House Republicans avoided the dreaded Christmas omnibus, sparing American taxpayers another pork-filled funding bill rushed through at the 11th hour. Remember Nancy Pelosi’s approach of “pass the bill to find out what’s in it”? No longer.
Chief among our accomplishments was the Working Families Tax Cuts package, signed into law on July 4, which delivered the bulk of the Republican agenda in one bill, and, crucially, early enough in the year that its effects can be felt quickly.
This included the largest middle- and working-class tax cut in American history. This spring, the average American family can expect to see a $10,000 increase in take-home pay and a tax refund of $1,000 to $2,000 per household.
Families will also benefit from tax exclusions for tips and overtime, real tax relief for seniors, an expanded child tax credit and tax-free savings accounts for every newborn American.
We also made permanent incentives that help small businesses provide child care and paid family and medical leave, giving Main Street a leg up in recruiting and retaining talent. These job creators will also see a massive boost from reforms that reward innovation, including a now-permanent small business deduction, 100% expensing for research and development, and a permanent bonus depreciation provision, so business owners can immediately write off capital investments.
These reforms are paired with our generational investment in border security, a rollback of Democrats’ harmful green-energy agenda, and landmark reforms to Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program that restore integrity to taxpayer-funded programs by removing illegal aliens and establishing common-sense work requirements for able-bodied adults.
All this comes against the backdrop of costs that have been rising for years. Consider this: When President Biden took office, the median age of a first-time home buyer was 33. Following his term, it reached an all-time high of 40.
President Biden inherited near-record-low inflation of 1.4%. Four years of Democrat control added $8.5 trillion to the national debt, quadrupling average inflation year over year. But hitting most Americans today is the cumulative 21.5% increase in prices over Mr. Biden’s four-year term.
Does anyone seriously believe the same party leaders who championed the ruinous policies of Bidenomics are prepared to fix the destruction they themselves created?
Any party serious about governing must recognize the economic challenge before us is twofold. First, we must put out existing fires and continue tackling inflation, strengthening a labor market in recovery, and putting more money back into Americans’ wallets.
Second, we must look for sources of enduring prosperity: deregulating and reshoring American industry, securing our economic dominance over competitors like China, and finally getting our nation’s debt under control.
This work takes time. The good news is the course correction is under way.
March brought the first drop in consumer prices since 2020, while this month Americans saw core inflation cool to 2.7%, a near five-year low. After losing $2,900 in purchasing power under President Biden, workers’ real wages are on track to increase by nearly $1,200. Gasoline prices have hit a four-year low. A total of $9.6 trillion in domestic and foreign investment is surging into our economy. And a powerful combination of spending cuts, interest saving and continued economic growth is expected to reduce the deficit by trillions of dollars, resulting in higher take-home pay, lower interest rates and a stronger economy.
Even with the slimmest of congressional majorities and historic obstruction from Democrats, President Trump and Republicans have kept our promises, restored order and laid the groundwork for an extraordinary new year—from containing the border crisis and stabilizing inflation to securing historic tax, trade and peace deals.
Next year, we’ll celebrate the 250th anniversary of our nation’s independence, as Americans experience the tangible results of common-sense governance: refunds reaching bank accounts, factories breaking ground, and the fruits of all this work coming to bear. The best is yet to come.
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