Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wisconsin, is doubling down on his concerns about a bill that would make sweeping changes to taxes, Medicaid, food stamps and more after it was passed last month in the Republican-led House at the urging of President Donald Trump.
The more-than-1,000-page bill narrowly cleared the lower chamber on May 22. Now, it faces an uncertain future in the Senate, where some conservatives have raised concerns about the legislation’s cost.
“It’s completely unsustainable,” Johnson said in an interview on Fox’s “Sunday Morning Futures.”
The bill is expected to add somewhere around $3 trillion to the deficit over the next 10 years and swell the federal government’s debt.
Still, the legislation would enact Trump’s major campaign promises like eliminating taxes on workers’ tips and overtime. It’s likely to be one of the most significant pieces of legislation that will be passed during his second term in the Oval Office.
Bartiromo on June 1 pressed Johnson on whether he was prepared to “blow up President Trump’s agenda.”
“I want to see him succeed,” Johnson said in response. “But again, my loyalty is to the American people, to my kids and grandkids. We cannot continue to mortgage their future.”
Johnson has repeatedly called for the federal government to return to pre-pandemic levels of spending and said he was disappointed the House bill didn’t go further in reducing the government’s debt.
Asked what the solution is, Johnson told Fox, “DOGE showed us how to do it. Contract by contract, line by line.”
Trump’s billionaire former adviser Elon Musk recently ended his tenure leading the Department of Government Efficiency. While the department has played a major role cutting into the federal bureaucracy, a longtime priority for the president, it hasn’t come up with the bulk of the $2 trillion savings Musk had promised to deliver while on the campaign trail.
Musk said in a May 27 interview with CBS he was “disappointed” by the Trump-led tax bill.
“I think a bill can be big or it can be beautiful, but I don’t know if it can be both. My personal opinion,” Musk said.
Johnson’s comments to Fox echo what he said a week earlier in an interview with CNN. The Wisconsin senator told anchor Jake Tapper he believed there were enough Senate Republicans who opposed the bill to hold up any potential vote.
“I think we have enough to stop the process until the president gets serious about the spending reduction and reducing the deficit,” Johnson said May 25.
Contributing: Riley Beggin
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: GOP senator bashes Trump tax bill: ‘Completely unsustainable’
