Sen. Ron Johnson is calling on Congress to tap the brakes on the "big, beautiful" budget bill, imploring the House to look to the example set by the Elon Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) to find real savings for American taxpayers.
"I've always been in favor of a multi-step process," the Wisconsin Republican told Newsmax's "Wake Up America" on Thursday. "Focus on the top priorities, the things we agree on, recognizing that the one big, beautiful bill is really complex.
"The only way we're going to return to a pre-pandemic level of spending is we have to take the time and do the work, as Elon Musk has done in DOGE. He's shown us how to do this. You have to look at each individual line item in the budget. You have to look at individual programs. You need to do pretty much a forensic audit on $7,000 billion worth of spending. I mean, try and comprehend that. In 2019, we spent $4,400 billion. Now we're spending $7,000 billion. I hate to report the House is only going to cut about 1.3% of that and that's not even a rounding error."
Johnson said that, as it stands now, the budget bill would actually increase the deficit over the course of 10 years, not decrease it.
"At a minimum, budget reconciliation ought to be getting the budget under control and hopefully reducing deficits," he said. "Our deficit can go from $37 trillion up to probably a minimum of $59 trillion right now. My calculations put it over $60 trillion as the big, beautiful bill is currently written. That's just a nonstarter. It's unacceptable. We should be reducing the deficit. So, we have to focus on spending, spending, spending.
"By the way, I don't think anybody who voted for Donald Trump expected him to continue spending at [former President Joe] Biden's levels," Johnson added. "They wanted him to defeat the deep state. You don't do that by funding government, the deep state, at President Biden's levels and that's pretty much what we're doing here."
Going line by line in a $7,000 billion budget, Johnson said he has to believe that congressional auditors would find "hundreds of billions of dollars" that would not be missed if they went unspent, except by "the people who are participating in the grift."
"But you have to do the work, which means you have to take the time," he said. "We're rushing this through right now. It's a failed process. This is not going to work. I come from the private sector. I suggested a budget review panel like you have in businesses. Senate, House, OMB [Office of Management and Budget], bring up these department heads, their budget experts, make them justify why are you spending more than we spent in 2019 increased by inflation population? There's no justification for that. Or, if there is, provide that justification rather than just have us ... pretty well rubber stamp it, except for a couple programs that we tweak, get a CBO [Congressional Budget Office] score, come up with a measly level of savings, and say, 'Isn't that one big, beautiful bill?' It's not. It's increasing the deficit."
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Nicole Weatherholtz ✉
Nicole Weatherholtz, a Newsmax general assignment reporter covers news, politics, and culture. She is a National Newspaper Association award-winning journalist.
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