US Sen. Ron Johnson Flip Flops on Trump Budget Bill
After leading opposition to omnibus bill, Johnson votes to move it forward.
Sen. Ron Johnson speaks at the RNC on Monday, July 15, 2024, at the Fiserv Forum in Milwaukee, Wis. Angela Major/WPR
Republican U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson has changed his tune about President Donald Trump’s tax cut and spending plan known as the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.
After spending weeks criticizing projected deficit spending in the legislation, Johnson voted to advance the measure over the weekend. He said he did so because of a “commitment” from Trump to cut federal spending.
During a Monday appearance on NPR’s “Morning Edition,” Johnson said through meetings with the president and his staff, “they’ve satisfied my requirement, which was a commitment to a reasonable, pre-pandemic level of spending and a process to achieve and maintain it.”
“Now that’s pretty broad, and we’ve had a lot of discussions,” he said. “And I truly believe that the president and his economic team are committed to exactly that.”
Since late May, Johnson was considered a leader of fiscal hawk Republicans speaking out against the federal budget bill, which independent analysts estimated would add trillions more to the national debt. But on Saturday night, Johnson switched to a “yes” on a key procedural vote that allowed the bill to be amended in the Senate.
One of the hallmarks of the bill, which has been aggressively backed by Trump and most GOP lawmakers, is a permanent extension of the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. Johnson was initially opposed to that legislation as well, but later supported it.
An analysis by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimates the national deficit would increase by more than $2.3 trillion through 2028 just under the temporary cuts in that bill.
On June 12, the CBO estimated that if those tax cuts are made permanent through the “big, beautiful bill, the deficit would grow by around $4.5 trillion through 2034.
Johnson said if Republicans, who controlled the Senate and U.S. House in 2017, had been “smart enough” to offset the loss of revenue from the tax cuts with cuts to federal spending, the current debate wouldn’t be necessary.
“We shouldn’t even be having this discussion,” Johnson said.
Democrats, including Wisconsin U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin, have blasted the legislation over steep cuts proposed for Medicaid and SNAP food stamp benefits. An analysis by the health policy nonprofit KFF states the largest source of Medicaid spending cuts would come from new work requirements for individuals currently covered by a Medicaid benefit expansion included in the Affordable Care Act. The study suggests nearly five million Americans could lose their health insurance as a result, including tens of thousands in Wisconsin.
Under the ACA, the federal government offered states a 90 percent federal match on the costs of expanding Medicaid coverage to nearly all adults with incomes up to 138 percent of the Federal poverty Level.
While Democratic state lawmakers in Wisconsin have pushed for more than a decade to expand Medicaid coverage under the ACA, their Republican counterparts who control the state Legislature have resisted. Wisconsin is now one of just 10 states not to accept the federal Medicaid funding.
Still, estimates from the American Hospital Association find more than 30,000 people in rural Wisconsin communities lose Medicaid coverage and the state’s rural hospitals would lose $607 million under the U.S. House’s version of the “big, beautiful bill.”
During a speech on the Senate floor Saturday night, Baldwin said she was in “disbelief” that Republicans are “jamming” a bill through Congress that will kick millions of people off of Medicaid and “take food off the tables of hungry families.”
In another Senate floor speech, Republican U.S. Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina warned that his GOP colleagues were about to “make a mistake on health care and betray a promise” if the bill passes.
During his NPR interview, Johnson described the Medicaid expansion under the ACA “basically legalized fraud” and was asked why he and Tillis see things so differently.
“Because North Carolina is one of the biggest abusers of the system,” Johnson said.
Johnson said he’ll “see how the amendment process goes” with Trump’s bill. He supports an idea proposed by Republican Sen. Rick Scott of Florida, which would end the federal government’s 90 percent cost share by 2030.
After leading opposition to Trump’s budget bill, US Sen Ron Johnson votes to move it forward was originally published by Wisconsin Public Radio.
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Of course he voted for this, everyone knew this was his intention from the very start. All of the posturing and sound bites were simply to create cover material and a story for his next election campaign.
What a rebel.