Senator Ron Johnson
speaker
231 appearances
4 recordings
4 series
first heard May 2025
last heard 31 Dec
Senator Ron Johnson’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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recordings per month · last 12 monthsRecordings per month over the last 12 months — 3 in all, peaking in Dec 2025 with 1.
Appearances
Oh, so when we have the majority in 2027, then we're going to actually turn the spending curve down. That's when we're going to return to pre-pandemic level spending. I don't buy it. This is our one opportunity. And right now we're blowing it. And I'm going to do everything I can to make sure we don't blow it. But again, that is the reality. And listen, I don't discount the fact.
that we may lose the House, we may lose the Senate. But I would say we do that because we're not solving these problems. We're going to be looked at as unserious. Our base is going to go, why did we elect you guys? You didn't take the bull by the horns. You didn't solve this problem. You're really no better than Democrats. I think we have to be concerned about that.
they will achieve and maintain a pre-pandemic level of spending, just a lower spending level. I come from a manufacturing base, right? You can't have a good product without a good process. And we've just never had that process. So the only one I can think of is what Doge has demonstrated does work in terms of getting the public supporting Us in terms of limiting just awful spending.
So you got to expose it. You got to go line by line. Again, there are thousands of lines, just top lines in the federal budget, hundreds, thousands of lines under each one of those as well. So you have to do the work. And again, I would love to take that Doge team, you know, those geniuses with all their AI and their computer skills.
and get 100, 200 forensic auditors and just go through this line by line. And again, my proposal was having this budget review panel, senators, House members, members of the administration, OMB. Then you basically set up the process just like you do in a business. Here's your budget review sheet.
Then you bring the department heads, their financial gurus in front of this budget review panel, just justify your spending. But again, I would be comparing it to outlays under Clinton plused up, outlays under Obama plused up, outlays under Trump plused up. Go through every line and go, first of all, why are you spending more than even Trump? Why are you spending more than Obama or Clinton?
Plus, why are you spending any money at all on this? But you have to go through the work so you need the time. I've been proposing this now for months. Nobody's put in the effort. OMB said we don't have enough time. And I realize they're busy. The House said, we've been working on this for a year. We're satisfied with our numbers. We didn't have the time.
The Senate, really, the Senate leadership is the only one that's been fully behind what I'm trying to do here. But we can't do it alone. I mean, I can't do it. I don't have the budget expertise. So it literally is it's getting the commitment of the president.
that he is determined to not keep funding the deep state at buying levels, return to a reasonable pre-pandemic level of spending, and then get his OMB fully behind this effort. This has got to be the biggest effort on budget ever. And then set the thing up, show it works, and then hopefully maintain it over the years. I can't think of anything. We've tried all this other stuff. It never worked.
I appreciate you having me on. I will say one thing that is different about me than others. I'd rather go home. That's a significant difference. When you'd rather, I'd rather return to my private sector life than keep serving here in this total dysfunction. That is what, again, I can't be pressured by President Trump. I can't.
I mean, he's not going to flip me just by the force of his argument or any kind of political pressure. There's no pressure he can apply to me. He's willing to sit down with me, look at the numbers, acknowledge them, working forward in a reasonable plan forward. That's the only way he's going to get my support.
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