WI senator: Despite DOGE talk + GOP majorities, DC still has us headed over the cliff

In the late 90s we had TWO senators — Faircloth and Helms — who talked honestly like this.  Now, we have to rely on senator Ron Johnson (R-WI) to tell us some gods-honest truth about the mess our country is in:

The “One Big Beautiful Bill” that Congress is working on is certainly big, but beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Too often the reality of these budget debates get obscured in details, politically charged issues and demagoguery. Let me attempt to clarify the current discussion by focusing on the most important facts and numbers.

In fiscal 2019, federal outlays totaled $4.45 trillion, or 20.6% of gross domestic product. This year, according to the Congressional Budget Office’s January 2025 projection, total outlays will be $7.03 trillion, or 23.3% of GDP. That’s a 58% increase over six years. The CBO projects federal outlays will total $89.3 trillion across fiscal 2026-35. Much of the blame goes to pandemic spending, but lockdowns are long over. There’s nothing now to justify this abnormal level of government spending.[…]

For those of you who slept through economics class, GDP is the total value of our national economy. He’s telling us that – THIS YEAR – federal spending will account for 23.3 percent of the total value of our national economy.

 […] 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. […]

[…] Other than during World War II, the increase in spending we’ve experienced over the past six years is unprecedented. After the war, Congress and President Truman understood the importance of returning spending to normal levels. In 1941, total outlays were $13.7 billion, or 11.7% of GDP. They peaked in 1945 at $92.7 billion, or 41% of GDP. That was a 577% increase, 10 times as large as what we experienced with the pandemic. Yet by 1948, federal outlays were $29.8 billion and back to a little over 11% of GDP.

Since 1948, government has steadily grown, and spending as a percentage of GDP has more than doubled. That level far exceeds the size and scope of government the Founders envisioned. In 1930, prior to President Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal, federal outlays were 3.5% of GDP, while state and local expenditures were 9.1%. That was the foundational premise of America and the 10th Amendment—a limited federal government with most governing occurring close to the governed at the state and local level.

That vision of limited federal government is now unattainable, but 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 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.

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.That projection assumes an automatic tax increase will occur in 2026 when provisions of the 2017 tax cuts expire, increasing revenue from 17.1% of GDP in fiscal 2025 to an average of 18.1% over the next 10 years. With the CBO projecting 10-year GDP at $373 trillion, that 1% increase represents $3.7 trillion of additional revenue and lower debt.

No one can accurately predict the dynamic economic effects of changes in tax law, tariffs and the current trade war. But by repealing the automatic tax increase, adding $1.5 trillion in additional tax cuts, pumping around $340 billion into additional border and defense spending, and reducing other spending by at most $1.5 trillion, the One Big Beautiful Bill will almost certainly add to our deficits and debt. I doubt Mr. Trump’s voters expect us to continue spending at President Biden’s levels, which led to the inflation they elected Republicans last year to stop. I doubt, too, that Trump voters will be elated to see the GOP embrace Democratic policies and priorities—including ObamaCare, which seems to have found new life under the name “Medicaid expansion.” And I can’t imagine that they want Republicans to increase annual deficits. That’s why I can’t support this bill as it’s currently being discussed and doubt that it will pass the Senate.

It’s also why I’m asking the president and congressional leaders to reconsider a multistep strategy on budget reconciliation. By immediately passing a bill based on the Senate’s original budget resolution, we can fund border security and defense priorities and bank $850 billion in real spending reductions. The next step would be to pass a bill that extends current tax law to prevent the automatic 2026 tax increase, and avoids default by including a smaller increase in the debt ceiling that maintains the pressure and leverage to achieve future spending reductions.

With those goals achieved, sufficient incentive would remain to address President Trump’s tax proposals focusing on working men and women and the already-expired business tax provisions of his 2017 tax law. It would also give us the time to simplify and rationalize 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, fraud, and abuse that the DOGE effort has shown exists. If we don’t, America is headed off a cliff.