JUANA SUMMERS, HOST:
The massive Republican spending bill working its way through Congress would cement a lot of President Trump's domestic priorities. It has made its way through the House so far, but next week, it heads to the Senate where a small group of Republicans has expressed big concerns over the size of spending. Chief among those critics is Wisconsin's Ron Johnson, who says he has enough allies to force changes to the bill. Here to tell us more is Wisconsin Public Radio's Anya van Wagtendonk. Hi there.
ANYA VAN WAGTENDONK, BYLINE: Hi there.
SUMMERS: So Anya, Ron Johnson seems to be leading this pushback to the President's budget bill in the Senate. So tell us, what is his issue?
VAN WAGTENDONK: Yeah. Put really simply, he is opposed to the cost of this thing. Johnson has built much of his political career around being a fiscal hawk, and then along comes this bill that congressional budget forecasters, that the Joint Committee on Taxation, now say could cost nearly $4 trillion over the next decade. And so for Ron Johnson, that all comes down to reducing, in his words, spending, spending, spending. Now, he does support some spending that's in there - for the military and immigration enforcement - but he says there needs to be huge cuts to balance that out. Right now, cuts mainly come from things like changes to Medicaid and food assistance, and Johnson says that's not enough to achieve what he wants, which is a return to pre-pandemic spending.
SUMMERS: Right, and this is sort of interesting because President Trump typically enjoys near unanimous support from Republicans in Congress. So how surprising is it then to see Senator Johnson pushing back?
VAN WAGTENDONK: Yeah, Johnson has been publicly calling for massive reductions in federal spending as far back as his first campaign for the Senate in 2010. It's sort of part of what sprung him into politics. But he is a significant Trump ally, and so it is a little surprising to hear him come out so forcefully against something that's meant to be a signature Trump piece of policy. So he's kind of threading that needle by being more critical of his colleagues in Congress, basically saying, I support Trump's overall agenda, but this isn't the way to get there. Here he is speaking to a local crowd at the state Republican Party Convention in Rothschild, Wisconsin, earlier this month.
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RON JOHNSON: I want President Trump to succeed. Again, I can't tell you how pleased I am with how boldly and decisively and swiftly he is acting to honor those promises. But the big, beautiful bill isn't what it's advertised to be.
SUMMERS: Senator Johnson there using the nickname for this bill - so tell us, Anya, who else is with him, and does he have enough support to actually force the changes that he wants?
VAN WAGTENDONK: He says he does, and there are a few other senators who have been outspoken on this. One of them is Rand Paul of Kentucky, another fiscal hawk. He's kind of less worked up about the overall spending. He says anemic cuts are better than no cuts at all, but he draws the line at the way the bill would raise the debt ceiling. Another opponent has been Missouri's Josh Hawley. He has big issues with the cuts to Medicaid that are in the bill, which, interestingly, is actually much more in line with Democrats' criticisms.
SUMMERS: Got it. So what happens if they vote against this?
VAN WAGTENDONK: Well, margins in the Senate are really slim. Republicans have only three votes to spare, and that's assuming no Democrats are on board. Johnson has said he will not vote for the bill in its current form. Rand Paul says he will not vote to increase the debt ceiling. And House speaker Mike Johnson says he is taking this opposition seriously. He's talked about how delicate it is to get something this massive through Congress. He's compared it to trying to walk across the Grand Canyon on dental floss. And it's important to note here that any changes the Senate ends up making to the bill will have to go back to the House for approval. So a little bit of difference here is a big deal. Could really mess things up for speaker Mike Johnson - though it offers quite a bit of power to Senator Ron Johnson.
SUMMERS: That was Wisconsin Public Radio's Anya van Wagtendonk. Thank you so much.
VAN WAGTENDONK: Thank you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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