Senators Ron Johnson and Rand Paul Say No to One Big Beautiful Bill

It takes four senators to block the bill, and there are four threats.

Ron Johnson’s and Rand Paul’s Red Lines

The Wall Street Journal comments GOP Senator Draws Red Line on Trump Megabill

Sen. Ron Johnson (R., Wis.) is used to watching his fellow GOP senators look at their shoes during closed-door meetings when he waves his charts and digs in his heels on the fiscal policies that are the foundation of his political career.

The three-term Republican is insisting on deeper spending cuts in President Trump’s “big beautiful bill,” saying his party is doing too little to address the country’s debt burden. His hard-line stance threatens to complicate passage of the GOP’s multitrillion dollar measure, which the Senate is turning to now and Trump wants on his desk by July 4.

“I’m saying things that people know need to be said,” said Johnson, 70 years old. “The kid who just exposed that the king is butt-naked may not be real popular, because he kind of made everybody else look like fools, but they all recognize he was right.” In the Senate, Johnson said, he would “like to think at least that my colleagues respect my passion, my genuine desire to do the right thing, to fix these problems.”

Johnson’s go-to-the-mat style is forcing to the surface fights that otherwise might play out behind closed doors, as party leaders try to keep the legislation on track through thin majorities in both chambers. House Republicans, who passed the bill by one vote last month and sent it to the Senate, have urged GOP senators to keep their changes minimal or risk losing crucial support when they send the bill back to the House.

In a 53-47 GOP-controlled Senate, Johnson can’t single-handedly stop the bill. But with Sen. Rand Paul (R., Ky.) already a “no” because the bill contains a debt-ceiling increase of at least $4 trillion and others including Sens. Rick Scott (R., Fla.) and Mike Lee (R., Utah) also signaling opposition, Republican leaders have little margin for error. Johnson said he had a “very respectful” conversation with Trump on Monday morning.

The Wisconsin senator, a Trump ally who repeatedly won re-election even when establishment Republicans declined to back him, is known for his eccentric politics, spanning from Covid-vaccine skepticism, to a cameo role in the events leading to Trump’s first impeachment, to floating debunked theories about the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. But he is also the author of a popular piece of Trump’s first-term tax cuts—and is now looking into what former President Joe Biden’s top officials knew about his mental acuity, a sore spot for Democrats that many Americans want to see addressed.

Beyond Medicaid work requirements in the House bill, Johnson wants to take aim at a provision of the 2010 Affordable Care Act that allows states to shift to the federal government 90% of the tab for low-income, mostly able-bodied adults who became eligible for Medicaid under the law. Johnson wants to rescind the federal matching rate for the expansion population, cutting it back to as little as 50% and removing billions of dollars from many of his Republican colleagues’ states. Wisconsin is one of only 10 states that didn’t expand Medicaid. 

“This isn’t Medicaid anymore—this is Medicaid plus Obamacare,” Johnson said. “It was designed to incentivize more Americans to become dependent on the government…it’s worked marvelously well, and now you’ve got Republicans defending it.”

Say No to Negative Progress

senator Johnson accurately described the problem.

And given incumbents normally lose seats in the midterms, and tariffs may kill the economy (I expect both), my advice would be to take a shot at doing something more with the budget instead of making negative progress.

Down Payment Madness

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R., La.) said on Fox News: “I don’t disagree with my good friend Ron Johnson. He’s right. We have a big national debt problem.” But, he said, critics needed to appreciate the cost-cutting in the bill, and he cast it as a down payment on future spending reductions.

How the flying F does increasing the deficit constitute a down payment on reducing it?

According to Senator Johnson, the current bill debt will add an additional $22 trillion to national debt over the next 10 years, from the current level of almost $37 trillion. 

Since that does not factor in recession, expect things to be worse.

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My expectation, as always, is that alleged fiscal-hawk Republican will cave in.