We told you the other day that Senator Ron Johnson was not a fan of President Trump’s Big, Beautiful Bill that just passed the House, and now he says he has enough votes to block the bill in its current form.
Here’s more from Axios:
Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), a fiscal hawk who has openly criticized House Republicans’ reconciliation bill, predicted Sunday that there are enough in his flock to stop the process “until the president gets serious about spending reduction and reducing the deficit.”
The big picture: Pushing President Trump’s “big, beautiful bill” through the House was far from a painless process, but the fiscal package now heads to the Senate, where the chamber is likely to make changes.
Johnson, who has not held back in his criticism of the bill championed by House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.), characterized the GOP-only legislation as “the Titanic” at a Politico event earlier this month.
Ron Johnson wants deeper cuts, and has repeatedly called for a return to pre-pandemic spending levels.
“This is the weekend we honor the service and sacrifice of the finest among us,” Ron Johnson said on CNN’s “State of the Union” Sunday, referencing the Memorial Day holiday. He added: “I don’t think they served in sacrifice to leave our children completely mortgaged.”
He called for his fellow lawmakers to be “responsible,” contending the “first goal of our budget reconciliation process should be to reduce the deficit.”
As he noted, the legislation — which aims to extend Trump’s first-term tax cuts, among other priorities — would do the opposite.
Asked how many of his fellow GOP senators he thinks share his concerns and would be willing to make major changes to the bill, Ron Johnson said “we have enough to stop the process.”
Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) echoed his Senate colleague’s criticism, saying on “Fox News Sunday” that the spending cuts included in the House bill “are wimpy and anemic.”
He continued that he “still would support the bill even with wimpy and anemic cuts if they weren’t going to explode the debt.”
Other senators, like Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), have expressed concerns about changes to Medicaid proposed in the bill.
Ron Johnson, Rand Paul and Ted Cruz are three who have said they can’t support the current bill and want changes. Lindsey Graham has also criticized the cuts, and that would make four votes against the bill, enough to sink it. And you know there are at least a few more. So yeah, the bill is going to get changed and then we’ll probably lose the House. It’s going to get real ugly before it will ever find a way to Trump’s desk.