That’s how Republican Sen. Ron Johnson has described President Trump’s massive domestic policy bill meant to enact core elements of the president’s agenda.
Now that Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” is in the hands of the Senate, some fiscal hawks — including Republicans like Johnson — are pushing back.
The senator said he wants to return spending to pre-pandemic levels and break up the House bill into separate Senate bills.
That’s not good for them and that’s not, certainly, good for the federal budget.”
Ron Johnson: The goal should have been how do we bend the deficit curve down rather than allow it to skyrocket?
immoral. hideous.
In this way, Republican Sen. President Trump’s massive domestic policy bill, which aims to implement key components of his agenda, has been described by Ron Johnson.
The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said Wednesday that the bill would force millions of people to lose their health insurance coverage and increase deficits by $2.04 trillion over the next ten years.
The Wisconsin senator stated that Trump’s bill, which passed the House by a slim margin, will not pass the Senate in its current form since it will “skyrocket” the deficit in an interview with Scott Detrow, host of All Things Considered.
When Johnson told NPR, “I can’t accept this is the new normal,”. It simply cannot be tolerated. “.”.
Some conservatives, including Republicans like Johnson, are resisting Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” now that it is in the Senate.
The senator stated his desire to split the House bill into separate Senate bills and restore spending to pre-pandemic levels.
Among many other things, the bill would cut taxes, modify federal food benefits, and require work for Medicaid.
Johnson stated, “We want people to be able to support themselves by getting good-paying jobs.”. “In order to get people off of welfare and away from the federal government, we need to… get them jobs. Both they and the federal budget would undoubtedly suffer from that. “.
Elon Musk said he was disgusted by the president’s proposed spending plan the same week that Johnson made his remarks.
“I believe that people see Musk as a very intelligent person who did a fantastic job with DOGE — exposing fraud, abuse, and waste,” Johnson told NPR. Musk has distanced himself from the administration, despite his aptitude for numbers. He is essentially following my lead. He is speaking the truth. “,”.
For clarity and length, this interview has been slightly edited.
Highlights of the interview.
Scott Detrow: In your opinion, what would persuade you to cast a “yes” vote?
Ron Johnson: Instead of letting the deficit curve soar, the objective should have been to figure out how to bend it downward. This bill lets it soar. Unfortunately, it doesn’t really make a dent in that reality.
Thus, you must start over from scratch. We must get our spending back to what it was before the pandemic, as I have been writing about since January. We must put in the effort if we want that to occur. Line by line, program by program, we must examine the federal budget, conduct forensic audits, and uncover waste, fraud, and abuse, just as DOGE did in their brief endeavor.
Detrow: When you consider all of that, why do you think he is pushing for this bill and why do you think he relied on House Republicans to pass it?
Johnson: Well, once more, I like that he is concentrating his tax proposals on working women and men. He desires to keep those commitments. I accept that. These are the pledges he made during the campaign. But he’s running against a Senate that, at the very least, is made up of people like me, a Tea Party candidate, who believe that it is unethical and wrong to mortgage our children’s future. It owed $14 trillion at the time. Currently at $37 trillion, we are expected to reach $60 trillion in the next ten years. Therefore, the “big beautiful bill” won’t even start to divert us from this unsustainable course.
Detrow: The White House isn’t calling you directly?
Johnson: On Monday, the president gave me a very kind call. We’re at least in agreement here because we decided to collaborate and improve our numbers.
That’s what I’m doing at the moment, which is pointing out the truth in public. Instead of, you know, talking about one “big beautiful bill” and getting it passed by July, I’m talking about numbers that are undeniable but characterize our current state as dire and unsustainable.
And once more, it’s all rhetoric. Those are merely catchphrases. I’m concentrating on substance, which they will find difficult to dispute and refute.
