Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) expressed his frustration at the lack of pressure on Republicans to codify DOGE savings into law in an interview with FOX Business host Maria Bartiromo.

BARTIROMO: Joining me now is Wisconsin Senator Ron Johnson, a member of the Senate Finance and Budget Committees. Senator, good to see you. Thank you so much for being here. And you’ve also made some similar sentiments. You say there is enough Senate allies to hold up this bill. Your reaction. SEN. RON JOHNSON (R-WI): Good morning, Maria. Again, like Senator Scott, I support President Trump. We want to see him succeed. We want to see America succeed. But, I ran in 2010 as part of the Tea Party movement because we were mortgaging our children’s future. Back then, we experienced our first deficit in excess of a trillion dollars under Obama, but we were $ 14 trillion in debt. Now we’re approaching $ 37 trillion in debt. And as Senator Scott said, over the next 10 years, we will be approaching $ 60 trillion, and Maria, that’s a rosy scenario. The CBO’s 10-year projections says it will add $ 22 trillion to our federal deficit, but that assumes taxes automatically increasing, bringing about almost $ 4 trillion in revenue. That doesn’t happen again. You can say economic growth can replace that, but it’s also assuming a 3.3 percent interest rate over that time period. You’re seeing interest rates move up as investors are starting to look at the United States is not particularly a credit-worthy entity. So, we need to get focused on spending, spending, spending. I’ve got a great video on my X page showing President Trump committing to a balanced budget and members of his administration saying we don’t have a revenue problem. We have a spending problem. I end that video with the questions, so, are we willing to fix it? Right now, the House bill, they’re not even scratching the surface. They’re not even — it’s not even the tip of the iceberg in terms of what we need to do to return to a reasonable pre- pandemic level spending. This is unprecedented. What’s happened from 2019 to today? It’s a 58 percent increase. BARTIROMO: Yeah. R. JOHNSON: It’s unprecedented, returning to a reasonable pre-pandemic baseline. Again, you just use the metric of what we spent in 2019 plus step by population growth and inflation. Use that numbers as a base, and then ask tough questions, why are we spending a 10 percent more than that? BARTIROMO: Right. You make great points. And I know, Senator, you have been working on getting back to pre-COVID spending now for some time. But, let’s be clear. President Trump has been in office for four and a half months. He did not get us here. The Democrats spent $ 7 trillion in the past administration. So, the question is, how do we fix it? What are your solutions? R. JOHNSON: Well, DOGE has showing us the way. You have to go line by line, contract by contract. We — I think a small business probably spends more time going line by line through its budget than Congress does through a $ 7,000 billion a year budget. Again, what we’re doing, the same way, most things are off budget. 75 percent of the budget is mandatory spending. We can address that in reconciliation. I would ask the question, where are the rescission packages so we can codify the DOGE savings? I’m listening to Elon Musk over the weekend, pretty disappointed in this House package as well. If I were him and all the work he put into DOGE and — yeah, we may be stopped spending the money, but I don’t know if they can eliminate it by impoundment. That’s going to be subject to the courts. We need to actually incorporate that into rescission packages so we can eliminate that spending that DOGE found out. Again, I’m not sure all the DOGE savings were strictly discretionary. Maybe some of that is in mandatory spending as well, but we’re not getting the information from the administration. BARTIROMO: Yeah. R. JOHNSON: And we certainly haven’t gotten a rescission package yet. BARTIROMO: Well, this is really important, because I was questioning why it is that the House Republicans refuse to codify into law codify the DOGE cuts? What’s the problem? I mean, all of that wasteful spending that DOGE exposed from, for example, one agency, USAID. R. JOHNSON: Well, DOGE was brilliant, and that was a combination of Elon Musk and President Trump. But, where has President Trump been in terms of putting pressure on the House to actually codify those rescissions? Where is President from a standpoint of actually embracing a reasonable pre- pandemic level spending? You don’t defeat the deep state by continuing to fund it at President Biden’s levels. But, that’s exactly what the House bill does. BARTIROMO: OK. R. JOHNSON: Again, they’re talking about one point — OK. Go ahead. BARTIROMO: No. Tell me. Tell me what, because I was just about to bring up the Inflation Reduction Act green energy credits. How is the House version funding the Democrats and their policies? R. JOHNSON: Well, it’s not eliminating all those tax credits. Again, I don’t want to use the tax code to economically engineer the economy. We’re awful at it. We ought to focus on spending, spending, spending. And of course, the only number you really heard during the House debate was $ 1.5 trillion. It sounds like a lot, but spread over 10 years, it’s only $ 150 billion, probably not even reducing us below $ 7 trillion, and that’s in comparison to the $ 89.3 trillion that we’ll spend over the next 10 years. By the way, that $ 1.5 trillion is reduced by the 300 billion plus in border and defense spending. So, again, it’s less than 1.3 percent of 10-year spending. It’s — again, it’s poultry. BARTIROMO: Yeah. R. JOHNSON: It’s meager. It’s just not meeting the moment. BARTIROMO: Well, with all due respect, somebody at home might be listening to this and saying, give me a break. The House identified $ 1.5 trillion in cuts. The Senate identified $ 4 billion in cuts. R. JOHNSON: Again, that is our Senate rules. We were promised that, oh, this is the — the $ 1.52 trillion goal, that’s just the floor. We can cut a whole lot more, and I took them at their word and we had to start the process. But, all that did was start the process. You’ve got senators like me that say no. You’ve got to return to a reasonable pre-pandemic level. I’ve laid out three options that literally would be a base spending level, $ 5.5 trillion to $ 6.5 trillion. I’m kind of throwing in the towel saying the best we would probably achieve is $ 6.5 trillion, but it would literally be reasonable to go to $ 5.5 trillion to $ 6 trillion. That’s what Bill Clinton, that’s what Obama spent (inaudible) for inflation population. I don’t think we were spending too little in 1998 or 2014. You always hear about zero-based budgeting. Right? They’re not serious about it. I’m proposing a $ 5.5 trillion to $ 6.5 trillion base budget, and they’re basically throwing the towel in on that as well. So, again, we’ve got enough senators that are going to dig their heels in. My guess is, the only way we accomplish this is in two-step process. Let’s focus on the parts (ph) that we agree on. Let’s not — let’s take an automatic tax increase off the table. Let’s give President Trump some relief on the debt ceiling, probably into the next year. By the way, that’ll be a massive amount. That’ll be about $ 2.5 trillion just to get us into the first quarter of 2026. That ought to shock everybody, but that would keep pressure on the process to, again, get serious about spending reduction and debt reduction. BARTIROMO: So, you will vote to raise the debt ceiling if in fact you get these spending cuts that you’re talking about? R. JOHNSON: Absolutely. All I’ve asked for is a commitment to a pre- pandemic level spending and a process to achieve and maintain it. We’ve never had a process to control spending. We don’t have a balanced budget requirement. The Appropriation Committees didn’t work. Budget Act didn’t work. Simpson-Bowles didn’t work. The only thing I can see is a very business person’s approach line by line, expose the grotesque waste and fraud and abuse. My guess, Maria, you go through $ 7,000 billion of spending, you’ll be able to eliminate hundreds of billions. People wouldn’t even know other than the grifters who are sucking down that waste, fraud and abuse. You have to do the work. BARTIROMO: How much of that — R. JOHNSON: We’ve got plenty of time to do the work. BARTIROMO: How much of that cuts Medicaid, because that’s what the Democrats are going to campaign on? So, how much of it cuts some of the entitlement programs, Social Security? Does it change Social Security? Does it change Medicare, Medicaid? R. JOHNSON: No. I’ve completely taken Medicare and Social Security off the table when I do those pre-pandemic options. Listen, we need to reform the Obamacare portion Medicaid. That’s what’s putting at risk Medicaid for the vulnerable, for disabled children. Again, we’re all going to repeal and replace Obamacare, but now people are defending it. But, again, you can even eliminate Medicaid. I’ve shown that, and there is still hundreds of billions dollars, couple of hundred billion in discretionary, couple of hundred billion in other mandatory that is above and beyond 2019 outlays, plus up for population inflation, fully inflated 2019. There is literally about $ 400 billion to $ 500 billion of spending that’s above those levels. So, again, go back there as a business person would. This will be a five- minute conversation in business. So, guys, I told you, you could increase your budget based on inflation and the number of customers we serve. You’re 10 percent above that. Cut it. Get back down to reasonable level. That’s — we need President Trump to lead on this. He needs to be fully committed to not funding the deep state at President Biden’s levels. BARTIROMO: Realistically — R. JOHNSON: We need President Trump. BARTIROMO: — realistically speaking, if you get the process going toward in the right direction by getting the spending numbers down, do you believe you can have this out the door by the end of July? R. JOHNSON: We could have done this already by the end of March, if we would have, again, provided the border funding, defense. Take $ 850 billion was what the Senate would have done. Real spending cuts, extend current tax off, take the automatic tax increase off the table. Now I think we have to add to it an increase in the debt ceiling, but again, not $ 5 trillion or $ 4 trillion, something to get us by a year to keep pressure on the process — BARTIROMO: What’s the answer, Senator? R. JOHNSON: — to return to a reasonable — BARTIROMO: Can you get it done by the end of July? R. JOHNSON: It’s just — we can. Yes. Yes. Yes, before July 4th if we break this into two parts. If you insist on one big, beautiful bill, as I said, that’s going down like the Titanic. They keep telling me, well, that ship has sailed. I’d say call that one back to port, because one big, beautiful bill, first of all, it’s not beautiful. BARTIROMO: So, you don’t want the tax cuts in part one. R. JOHNSON: Not right now. No. Listen, $ 22 trillion additional deficit, this is not the time to cut taxes that don’t promote economic growth. BARTIROMO: Then you’re going to — (CROSSTALK) BARTIROMO: Will you need the Democrat support at the end of the year? R. JOHNSON: No. BARTIROMO: How do you know you’re going to get the tax extensions done? And — by the way, it’s not cutting taxes. It’s stopping a tax increase. Let’s be clear. R. JOHNSON: Oh, I know. I would do that right away. I would extend current tax law. I would have done that right away in February. I would have done that in 2017 if we would have been smart enough to use current policy, but we weren’t back then. BARTIROMO: So, you want to do the tax extensions in part two, is what you’re saying. R. JOHNSON: No. Part one. I want to do that right away. I want to get that done right away. BARTIROMO: What’s in part two? R. JOHNSON: Part two would be Trump’s tax proposal. Let’s try and simplify and rationalize the tax code. Let’s do the work to go line by line to expose this. BARTIROMO: No tax on tips. No tax on overtime. No tax on Social Security. That’s part two. R. JOHNSON: Do that later. We’ll debate that later. BARTIROMO: Senator, good to have you this morning. Thank you, sir. We’re going to be watching your important work. R. JOHNSON: Have a great day. BARTIROMO: We appreciate it. Senator Ron Johnson in Wisconsin.

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