{"id":14906,"date":"2025-01-23T21:15:19","date_gmt":"2025-01-23T22:15:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/?p=14906"},"modified":"2025-01-23T22:56:30","modified_gmt":"2025-01-23T22:56:30","slug":"emergency-ended-so-should-federal-spending-spree-says-johnson","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/?p=14906","title":{"rendered":"Emergency ended; so should federal spending spree, says Johnson"},"content":{"rendered":"

This post originally appeared at https:\/\/www.badgerinstitute.org\/emergency-ended-so-should-federal-spending-spree-says-johnson\/<\/a><\/p>\n

Senator lays out for Badger Institute audience a plan to address deficits and debt<\/em><\/strong><\/h4>\n
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Troubled by what he calls the insanity of unchecked federal spending, U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson says he will lead an effort to produce a balanced budget and restore the value of the dollar.<\/p>\n

Congress needs to return to pre-COVID spending levels, adjusted for population growth and inflation, in order to avoid another massive deficit, said Johnson, who kicked off the Badger Institute\u2019s 2025 Speaker Series<\/a> on Jan. 17.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Working with congressional allies, Johnson plans to use his position on the Budget Committee to use the budget reconciliation process to develop a new spending baseline.<\/p>\n

Reconciliation is a congressional process that allows for expedited consideration of specific spending, tax, and debt-related measures. Reconciliation legislation isn\u2019t subject to the Senate filibuster, and can pass with a simple majority vote rather than facing a 60-vote threshold.<\/p>\n

Johnson, who was a businessman and an accountant before joining Congress, laid out the\u00a0astronomical growth of the national debt over the last four decades.<\/p>\n

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\u201cWe\u2019re mortgaging our children\u2019s future,\u201d he told the audience. \u201cIt\u2019s immoral, and it has to stop. When I got into Washington, D.C., in 2011, the debt was at $14 trillion. Now it\u2019s $36.3 trillion and, according to President Biden\u2019s budget, it\u2019ll be at $52 trillion in 10 years. I mean, this is clearly unsustainable.\u201d<\/p>\n

Interest payments on the debt alone have grown from pre-pandemic levels of under $300 billion annually to nearly a trillion dollars this year \u2014 more than the United States spends on national defense, he said.<\/p>\n

The devaluation of the dollar is another consequence of massive federal debt. Johnson pointed out that a 1998 dollar is now only worth 51 cents, a 2014 dollar is worth 74 cents, and a dollar from 2019, just before the pandemic, is now worth 80 cents.<\/p>\n

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\u201cWe\u2019re trying to inflate our way out of the debt,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s not working. We\u2019ve basically cut the value of the dollar in half in about 26 years.\u201d<\/p>\n

The massive 2020 budget, inflated by COVID-related expenditures, effectively created a new baseline for spending.<\/p>\n

Given the nature of the pandemic and its economic impact, some of the spending increases at the time were justified, Johnson said. But once the crisis was addressed, spending should have returned to previous levels.<\/p>\n

He compared it to a family with an annual income of $100,000 suffering a sudden medical crisis that balloons their expenses to $150,000. While they might have to take a loan to pay the medical bills, once the crisis is over, a responsible family would bring their spending back into alignment with their income. The federal government hasn\u2019t, he said.<\/p>\n

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\u201cIn 2019 we spent $4.4 trillion. During the pandemic, 2020, we went on this massive spending spree.\u201d<\/p>\n

Federal spending jumped to $6.5 trillion that year. \u201cFor the last five years, we\u2019ve averaged $6.5 trillion, which is more than 50% higher than it was in 2019. Last year we spent $6.9 trillion. President Biden budgeted to spend $7.3 (trillion) and like nobody\u2019s calling this out, nobody\u2019s outraged by this.\u201d<\/p>\n

The problem is exacerbated by the fact that few in Congress actually know how much the federal government spends in total. Johnson explained that three years ago, when Congress was debating a spending measure, he asked his colleagues during a meeting if anyone knew how much the federal government had spent the year before.<\/p>\n

\u201cNobody raised their hand. Nobody gave me an answer,\u201d he said. \u201cWe are the largest financial entity in the world. Members of Congress are in effect the 535 members of the board of directors. But we never discuss total spending.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll we ever pass is the appropriation accounts, the discretionary spending accounts, which is less than 70% of the budget. Everything else is on automatic pilot, so people aren\u2019t even aware of the massive spending.\u201d<\/p>\n

To determine what a reasonable spending level would be, Johnson spent his Christmas break reviewing budget tables from the last few decades. What would be the current baseline be, he wondered, if federal budgets had simply grown based on population and inflation levels?<\/p>\n

He began with 1998, the last year that the federal government had a balanced budget, $1.7 trillion. Johnson factored in inflation and population increases while plugging in current levels for Social Security, Medicare and net interest, and found that the new baseline for the upcoming budget would be $5.5 trillion. Since federal revenues are currently around that amount, the budget would be balanced.<\/p>\n

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Using the same approach, he examined the 2014 budget under Barack Obama, which would generate a baseline today of $6.2 trillion \u2014 more than a trillion-dollar savings over Biden\u2019s proposal of $7.3 billion.<\/p>\n

After doing the same with 2019 figures, he reviewed Trump\u2019s final budget for fiscal year 2021, which included a spending projection for 2025 of $5.4 to $5.5 trillion. With mandatory expenditures factored in, the baseline spending level would be $6 trillion.<\/p>\n

\u201cFrom my standpoint, that\u2019s the range that we ought to be talking about when we pass a budget for reconciliation, somewhere between Bill Clinton\u2019s inflated-level $5.5 trillion and President Trump\u2019s inflated-adjusted 2025 budget of $6 trillion. That is what I\u2019m fighting for.\u201d<\/p>\n

He emphasized that current deficits are not the result of the 2018 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, as some have claimed. The tax relief package paid for itself three years earlier than the Congressional Budget Office had initially estimated, and revenues are up.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe don\u2019t have a revenue problem,\u201d he said. \u201cWe have a spending problem.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not like deficit spending is a new phenomenon, because we don\u2019t have to balance a budget like states do,\u201d he added. \u201cMembers of Congress really aren\u2019t that particularly interested in balancing the budget, particularly now that we just suspend the increase in the debt ceiling. So it\u2019s very painless to spend money we don\u2019t have here in Washington.\u201d<\/p>\n

His plan is to get Senate Republicans to commit in advance to discretionary spending levels as well as numbers for other mandatory spending (excluding Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid). The Senate Budget Committee would then pass a budget with instructions to appropriations committees to stay within the established parameters.<\/p>\n

Johnson is hoping to create public pressure on legislators to do the right thing. He\u2019s also working to bring the Trump administration on board with this approach.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve been very up front, saying I don\u2019t think people who voted for President Trump had the expectation that he would abide by Joe Biden\u2019s spending levels,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019m pretty well putting everybody in the administration on notice.\u201d<\/p>\n

Johnson will look to allies such as Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.), Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah), Sen. Bernie Moreno (R-Ohio) and others to regain control of the budgeting process, he said.<\/p>\n

He has been encouraged that a recent essay<\/a> he wrote for The Wall Street Journal putting forth these ideas is gaining traction inside Congress. Some still throw up all kinds of roadblocks, he said, but they can\u2019t refute its logic.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey can\u2019t refute the fact that this is exactly what American families, American businesses need to do. Why is Congress exempt from fiscal responsibility?<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not too late,\u201d he added, \u201cbut we need the willpower to do it.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Michael Jahr is former Vice President at the Badger Institute, current CEO of Jahr Productions, and Producer + Director of\u202f<\/em>Liberty at Stake: The Joshua Glover Story<\/em><\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

Any\u202fuse or reproduction of Badger Institute articles or photographs requires prior written\u202fpermission.\u202fTo request permission to post articles on a website or print copies for distribution, contact Badger Institute President Mike Nichols at\u202f<\/em>mike@badgerinstitute.org<\/em><\/a>\u202for 262-389-8239.<\/em><\/p>\n

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