Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) has doubled down on his conservative plan to cut government spending with a new proposal outlined in an op-ed published by the Wall Street Journal.
“Federal spending is out of control,” Johnson said at the outset. Wednesday commentaryand urged his colleagues on Capitol Hill to return to pre-pandemic spending that is “adjusted for population growth and inflation.”
“Federal government spending in fiscal year 2019, from October 1, 2018 to September 30, 2019, totaled $4.447 trillion. Due to increased spending due to the pandemic, federal spending in fiscal year 2020 was $6.554 trillion. “It has soared to $1 billion,” he added. “Businesses closed, cities went into lockdown, and unemployment soared.”
In the article, the Wisconsin Republican detailed his frustration with high spending caused by the pandemic.
“In a sane world, the coronavirus spending levels would have been such an extreme aberration that we would have already returned to more reasonable spending levels,” Johnson wrote before proposing an inflationary budget cap.
Johnson also highlighted the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP), a $961 million program established as part of the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act of 2020. The initiative, aimed at helping small and medium-sized enterprises stay in business, also covered fraudulent loan payments.
Fraudsters across multiple states were able to obtain millions of dollars worth of PPP loans by lying about the number of employees and the very existence of the business. The program ended in late May 2021.
Republican senators argued that the loans were not given based on economic need and were “simply forgiven.”
“We will never know the exact amount of waste, fraud and abuse in coronavirus relief spending. We are only seeing the tip of the iceberg,” Johnson wrote. “Instead of targeting relief with laser precision, we used shotguns and fired money out the door as quickly as the federal government could print it.”
“The result was the highest inflation in 40 years,” he added.
In response, he advocated increasing spending to account for population growth and inflating the numbers based on changes in the consumer price index relative to fiscal year 1998.
“The dollars you had in 1998, 2014, and 2019 are now worth only 51 cents, 74 cents, and 80 cents, respectively. I don't think you spend too little in any year,” he said. continued.
“The big spenders in Washington need to understand why they allowed such a devaluation and why it is not only reasonable but feasible to set the baseline spending in one of these budget years,” the senator said. I need to explain,” he concluded.
His comments were released ahead of President-elect Trump's return to the White House. President Trump has tapped billionaire Elon Musk and former Republican chief rival Vivek Ramaswamy to lead a new advisory group to fight government spending called the Department of Government Efficiency.
Their approach to “wasteful” federal spending is already making an impact in the House, helping pass two stopgap bills ahead of the government shutdown deadline last month. Ultimately, a third bill was passed and signed by President Biden, averting the funding shortfall.
