Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) made a call for President-elect Donald Trump and Congress to look at “the numbers” in addressing “out-of-control” spending, about which some Republicans are already in disagreement.
House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) has expressed desire to enact Trump’s agenda in a bigger bill, which would also address cutting down spending, whereas Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) has expressed concern over a bill this size getting to Trump’s desk. In giving his take on the matter, the Wisconsin senator noted this debate reflects how “complex” this debate is, stating that he himself prefers a “two-step process” on this, which would include giving the president-elect the money needed to secure the border while taking enough time to prevent a massive tax increase from happening in 2026.
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Johnson further argued that he felt many people in the United States, and even lawmakers in Washington D.C., do not understand how much the nation overspends. He explained that in 2019, the year before the COVID-19 pandemic hit the U.S., the nation’s total government spending was $4.4 trillion; in 2025, President Joe Biden has predicted the nation will spend $7.3 trillion.
“That’s a 63% increase while our population’s only grown 2.2%,” Johnson said on Fox News’s Sunday Morning Futures with Maria Bartiromo. “There’s no justification for that, and of course, it all happened because of the pandemic. And the pandemic, we went on this massive spending spree and we increased the baseline, and we’ve never come off of it. It’s like your family, if you have an illness and you have to spend a lot of money, and then your family member gets cured and you keep spending that same amount? That’s absurd!”
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Johnson explained that he decided to look “at the numbers” during the recent congressional break. He pitched his idea on returning to a “pre-pandemic baseline of spending.” To do this, he suggested the U.S. base spending on both population growth and inflation, stating the U.S. should only be spending $5.5. trillion this year based on this.
The senator was then asked if he would support Trump’s bid to have the debt ceiling either removed or raised, to which he said he would not since the nation “absolutely” needs it. He argued that while he would engage in negotiations to increase it, the debt limit is still needed in order to control government spending.
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On Sunday, the House speaker previewed what the Republican-controlled Congress would achieve with the help of the Senate and Trump within the next few months, which would include “dismantling the deep state all along the way” in a bid to fix the nation’s economy. A vote for this massive bill for Trump’s agenda could make its way to Trump’s desk as early as the end of April. Johnson said.
Ahead of Trump’s inauguration on Jan. 20, several Republicans have called for Trump’s national security nominees to be confirmed in an expedited manner, citing the recent terror attack in New Orleans, Louisiana. Sen. John Thune (R-SD), the incoming Senate majority leader, has stated on X that the attack is a “clear example” why Trump’s nominees should get confirmed “as quickly as possible.”
