Ron Johnson Says He’s ‘More Tea Party Than Republican,’ Opposes Big Beautiful Bill
Senator envisions greater expenditures oversight role for Congress.
Sen. Ron Johnson speaks at the RNC on Monday, July 15, 2024, at the Fiserv Forum in Milwaukee, Wis. Angela Major/WPR
U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson was propelled into politics through the Tea Party movement in 2010, promising to cut government spending. The Wisconsin Republican said that same philosophy is behind his opposition to the budget bill passed by his party in the House.
“There is no amount of pressure that President Trump can apply to me that exceeds the pressure I feel, the promises I made, to stop mortgaging our kids’ future,” Johnson said Wednesday when he explained his opposition during remarks at the Milwaukee Press Club.
The budget bill, or the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, is the cornerstone of President Donald Trump’s agenda. It pairs tax cuts with reductions in Medicaid and federal food assistance, which independent analysts say could add almost $500 billion to annual deficits.
Long-term, Johnson argued that continuing current trends in federal spending could cause an “acute debt crisis” — the U.S. defaulting on its bonds.
“We can’t continue to mortgage our children’s future,” he said. “It is wrong, it is immoral. It has to stop.”
Shorter-term, Johnson said that means returning to pre-pandemic spending levels.
Spending spiked in 2020, then fell to a rate higher than it had been before that, according to data from the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.
“That’s not cutting, that’s just returning to a reasonable spending level,” he said.
The cuts included in the House plan would have a big impact on Wisconsin residents. An analysis shows more than 228,000 Wisconsinites could lose health insurance coverage under those cuts, among some 8.6 million total Americans who may see their coverage affected.
And the state would lose an estimated $314 million in food assistance.
But Johnson believes the spending cuts in the bill do not go far enough. While Johnson said he wants Trump to succeed, he was unwavering in his position on expenditures.
“I sprang out of the Tea Party movement,” he explained. “I still view myself as more Tea Party than Republican Party.”
Republican Sens. Rand Paul and Josh Hawley have also criticized the bill. Johnson said he believes he has enough support in the Senate to slow down its passage and make revisions.
Johnson outlines short-term goals on budget bill
Johnson said he wants to keep “the good work of the House” on the current bill’s boost in border security and defense spending.
But rather than instituting new tax cuts — “none of them are particularly pro-growth, they’re just going to reduce revenue,” he described them — he said he’d like to “extend current tax law.”
Johnson said he wants to “bump the debt ceiling” just enough to get the government through one more fiscal year.
He said the looming debt ceiling would put pressure on Congress to come back and do a “line-by-line examination” of federal spending next year.
Johnson imagines Congress with greater spending oversight role
Johnson said there’s already a blueprint for that line-by-line examination.
“The way you achieve it is how DOGE showed us,” he said.
He said Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency “exposed how clueless, how oblivious, members of Congress are to the waste, fraud and abuse.”
He said that could include a budget review panel composed of senators, representatives and Office of Management and Budget staff.
“Have the department heads, with their budget gurus, come before us and explain — justify their budgets,” he envisioned.
He also said Congress needs more of a process to control federal expenditures.
“We’ve never had a process to control spending at the federal government level,” he said. “We don’t have a budget balance requirement, which most states do.”
Without touching Social Security, Medicare and interest payments, Johnson said the government should peg remaining expenditures to population growth and inflation.
He said he sees Trump’s current term as the best opportunity yet to act on his yearslong concerns about federal spending.
‘More Tea Party than Republican’: Sen. Johnson says longtime beliefs inform Trump bill opposition was originally published by Wisconsin Public Radio.
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Remember back in 2017 Johnson was opposed to the TCJA because it increased the deficit? Then they added a tax cut that he personally benefitted from and he voted for it. I’m guessing the same thing will happen now; he’ll negotiate some benefit for himself and then magically stop caring about the deficit again.
Remember how Ole’ Empty Suit Johnson voted for a publicly-funded railroad extension to his, whoops, his father-in-law’s business? Yes, exactly, his self-serving actions speak louder than his many, many dimwitted words.