Sen. Johnson says deficit is mortgaging children's' future by spending $89.3 trillion over 10 years

Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., said Thursday that the U.S. is mortgaging the next generation's future as the U.S. is on track to spend $89.3 trillion over the next 10 years.

"We're mortgaging our children's future," Johnson said on a Just the News special with the Association for Mature Americans (AMAC). "It's wrong. It's immoral. It's gotta stop. There you go. That was my campaign theme in 2010 that got me elected. It's been my primary focus again."

Johnson has been one of the Republicans in the Senate opposed to President Donald Trump's "big beautiful bill" that passed the House earlier this month. Johnson, like some other Senate Republicans, is opposed to the bill because of concerns about how much it will increase the deficit. The Department of the Treasury says that the country's deficit is $1.05 trillion for the fiscal year 2025. The bill also includes key factors of the president's agenda, such as no taxes on tips, increased border security funding and extending the president's 2017 tax cuts. 

Johnson said when he was elected to the Senate in 2010, the debt was only $14 trillion. "Now it's $37 trillion," Johnson said. "The current CBO estimate, the most recent one-they have projects spending $89.3 trillion over the next 10 years, incurring another $22 trillion worth of deficits. That means $2.2 trillion per year."

Johnson said the government doesn't have a revenue problem, but a spending problem. 

Fear of unintended consequences

Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., is another Republican who also has concerns about the economic problems this legislation could bring if passed. “I want to get a deal done; I support the president’s agenda," Scott said, according to The Hill. "I support the border, I support the military, I support extending the Trump tax cuts — but we have to live in reality. But we got to live in reality here: We got a fiscal crisis."

Johnson said instead of one "big beautiful bill" the lawmakers should have been broken the various Trump policy initiatives down into a multistep process. He said in a previous interview with Just the News that the legislative package should be broken up into three parts: border security, defense funding and extending the current tax code.

"I've always been in favor of a multistep process," Johnson said. "Focus on the areas of agreement. That's the border [and] defense. Take whatever spending reductions we can get. The Senate and our budget proposal said $850 billion."

Johnson said the U.S. had to return to the lower levels of pre-pandemic spending in order to get the country back on track.

"We have to return to pre-pandemic level spending," he said. "I think more Americans are aware of the fact, because they just experienced four-year high inflation [and] the devaluation of their dollar, that we've got to get this under control."