Sen. Johnson announces he will not vote for Trump's mega-bill: 'It will increase the deficit and the debt'

Ron Johnson became the first Senate Republican to publicly oppose Donald Trump. In an op-ed published in The Wall Street Journal, the Wisconsin senator announced his conclusions, in which he argued that the legislation does not sufficiently attack the national debt, which could push the United States off a "cliff."

The article was published just hours after Republicans on the House Ways and Means Committee released details of their tax reform. Johnson was unenthusiastic about its 389 pages and called for the president to consider a new strategy to move forward with the budget reconciliation.

The Republican senator's central argument is that the bill does little to reverse a trend he sees as very harmful to the country: out-of-control spending growth. Johnson acknowledges that a return to mid-20th-century spending levels is impossible, but he asserts that Congress could return to pre-pandemic levels in 2020.

"Returning to a reasonable pre-pandemic level of spending is doable. The economy is no longer forcibly shut down. Congress should at least be able to bring spending back to its 2019 share of GDP, which would total $6.47 trillion next fiscal year. This would be $838 billion below the CBO’s (Congressional Budget Office) current fiscal 2026 spending projection of $7.29 trillion. Returning federal outlays to 20.6% of GDP would save $8.4 trillion over 10 years. That’s a lot better than the current paltry goal of $1.5 trillion," Johnson wrote.

"It’s essential that Congress deviate from its current path. Under every scenario now being considered, federal debt continues to skyrocket from its current level of almost $37 trillion. The CBO’s current projection adds around $22 trillion over the next 10 years, resulting in total debt of approximately $59 trillion—134% of GDP—in 2035," he added.

In turn, the senator, who was re-elected in 2022 and will serve until January 2029, harshly criticized the current attempt to lower spending: "Pathetically, Congress is having a hard time agreeing on a reduction of even $1.5 trillion from that 10-year amount. That’s a 1.68% cut—a little more than a rounding error. My guess is that much of that minuscule decrease will be backloaded to the end of the 10 years for which Congress is now budgeting, increasing the probability those savings will never be realized."

Specifically, the senator advocated breaking the bill into three steps: the first addressing defense and border security priorities, the second renewing the income tax cuts included in the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 (TCJA), and the third incorporating provisions designed to avoid defaulting on the debt.

Finally, once all of this is passed, "there would be sufficient incentive left to address President Trump's worker-focused tax proposals and the expired corporate tax provisions of his 2017 tax law. It would also give us time to simplify and streamline the tax code and go line-by-line through the entire federal budget to uncover, expose and eliminate the hundreds of billions of dollars of waste."

This division of the president's priorities had already been pushed by Johnson's other colleagues, Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and Ted Cruz (R-TX), who could not convince Trump that this was the best path when trying to advance his agenda through Congress.

Johnson is the first Republican senator to announce his opposition to the president's bill, who, at most, could afford three Republican casualties when it comes time to voting. The other senators in doubt are Susan Collins (R-ME), Josh Hawley (R-MO) and, although his vote is also expected to be negative, Rand Paul (R-KY).