May 25 (UPI) — President Donald Trump is losing support for his ‘big, beautiful bill,’ a budget measure that would add $3.3 billion to the national deficit over the next decade.
Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wisconsin, said there are enough GOP Senators to stymie the bill, which the House passed by a one vote margin on May 22nd.
“I think we have enough to stop the process until the president gets serious about the spending reduction and reducing the deficit,” Johnson said Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union.”
Republicans have a 53-47 vote margin in the Senate, but several members of the GOP have said they are not ready to support the budget bill, and are poised to defeat it.
“This is our moment,” Johnson said Sunday. “We have witnessed an unprecedented level of increased spending. This is our only chance to reset that to a reasonable pre-pandemic level.”
Trump has urged conservatives to support the measure, but Johnson called on his fellow Republicans to adopt a different approach to addressing the deficit before he could get behind a budget bill.
In its current form, the budget bill would increase the debt ceiling by $4 billion which would prevent a default on the national debt, which would occur in August.
Johnson was joined in his opposition to the bill by Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., who also cited the hike in the national deficit.
“I still would support the bill, even with wimpy and anemic cuts,” Paul said on Fox News Sunday, “if they weren’t going to explode the debt. The problem is, the math doesn’t add up. It’s just, you know, not a serious proposal.”
House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., a Trump confidant, agreed “wholeheartedly” with Paul’s criticism of the budget bill. Johnson followed Paul on the Fox News Sunday program.
“I love his convocation and I share it,” the speaker said. “The national debt is the greatest threat to your national security, and deficits are a serious problem.”
Critics of the bill have called on the Senate to take a different approach to reaching a compromise.