Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., appearing on Newsmax on Thursday, slammed the ongoing spending battle in Congress as "grotesque" and a "totally dysfunctional way to fund a government."
House Republicans this week are looking to pass a continuing resolution to avoid a government shutdown, which could occur in just 10 days, with a stopgap measure to extend funding until the end of the fiscal year.
Johnson said on "Wake Up America" that Congress is working to avoid a government shutdown, which he said would be the fault of Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., for not allowing an appropriation bill to reach the floor when he was Senate majority leader.
"We're halfway through the fiscal year," Johnson said. "So now we've got to figure out, How do you fund the last half? You know, unfortunately, in 2019 we spent $4.4 trillion. This year, we're slated to spend about $7.3 trillion."
Johnson said that legislators are "really arguing" about "less than 70% of all the funding."
"More than 70% is on automatic pilot in terms of mandatory spending," he said. "So we're just talking about a relatively small percentage of total government funding."
Johnson also dismissed concerns about the impact of a shutdown, saying that "generally less than 10% of government shuts down" in that situation and blamed past Democrat presidents for making them "as painful as possible."
"So if we do get the shutdown, and I want to avoid it, at least we'll have President Trump who will try and make it … the least painful as possible," Johnson said.
He also said that Republicans are "not expecting any help from Democrats in terms of appropriation bills," which is "why President Trump is focusing on a continuing resolution."
Johnson said the legislation must be "as clean as possible," warning lawmakers to "not attach things to it to make it very difficult for Democrats to vote against it, because if they were, then they should be blamed for a shutdown."
Johnson added: "Republicans do not want a shutdown. We're trying to do this as simple as possible. This is a grotesque way, totally dysfunctional way, to fund government."