Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wisc.) pressed back on the House version of a sweeping domestic policy measure meant to advance President Trump’s agenda during an interview with CNN’s Jake Tapper on Sunday, arguing it will exacerbate the national deficit.
“We need to be responsible, and the first goal of our budget reconciliation process should be to reduce the deficit,” Johnson said. “This actually increases it.”
“I’m sorry, the House bill would probably add, I’ve calculated, $4 trillion,” he added.
The House narrowly passed its version of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act early Thursday morning after an overnight session.
The Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT), the official revenue scorer for Congress, estimates the tax components will add $3.7 trillion to the deficit over the next decade after offsets are calculated. The biggest hit would come from the proposed extension of Trump’s 2017 tax cuts from his previous term.
Johnson is among several Republican senators who have raised objections to the House plan as the measure heads to the Senate for vetting.
“I think we have enough (senators) to stop the process until the president gets serious about the spending reduction and reducing the deficit,” Johnson told Tapper of the bill’s fate in the upper chamber.
He said that the spending cuts House Republicans approved aren’t large enough to offset added long-term pressure on the deficit and he thinks more work needs to be done.
“I have nothing but the support for what President Trump is trying to do, and I love the way he’s acting boldly and swiftly decisively to fix the enormous messes left by the Biden administration,” Johnson said. “We have to reduce the deficit, and so we need to focus on spending, spending, spending.”
“Level spending and then subject yourself to death by 1,000 cuts,” he added. “Nobody would even notice it, other than the grifters who are sucking down the waste, fraud and abuse.”
