U.S. Sen. Johnson: Releases budget reconciliation report

WASHINGTON – Today, U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) released his report titled, “FY 2025 Budget Reconciliation: Facts, Figures, and Analysis.” The senator contends that neither Congress, the Administration, nor the public at large has fully acknowledged the depth of the fiscal hole we have dug, or what it will take to dig ourselves out of it. “The first step in solving any problem is admitting you have one. The second step is defining it clearly,” said Sen. Johnson.

In the seven years prior to the pandemic, federal deficits averaged $660 billion per year. Mass panic during the pandemic resulted in a spending increase of $2.1 trillion in FY2020 ($4.4 to $6.5 trillion), with a one-year deficit exceeding $3.1 trillion. Instead of returning to a reasonable pre-pandemic level of spending as the economy recovered and unemployment rates returned to normal, President Biden and congressional Democrats kept the spending spree going, resulting in deficits averaging $1.9 trillion over the next four years, sparking forty-year high inflation.

CBO’s January 2025 baseline projects a cumulative 10-year (FY2025-FY2034) deficit of $21.1 trillion, or $2.1 trillion average deficit per year. CBO’s score of the One Big Beautiful Bill (OBBB) projects a 10-year deficit of $24.1 trillion, or $2.4 trillion average per year. Even the scenario presented by the White House in its June 7, 2025 memo projects a 10-year deficit of $18.6 trillion, or $1.86 trillion average per year, only slightly below President Biden’s level. The White House scenario assumes $2.8 trillion in tariff revenue and $1.5 trillion in additional discretionary spending reduction.

With these facts in mind, Sen. Johnson’s report provides an analysis of different scenarios using various growth rates and spending levels to prove that, without returning to a much lower pre-pandemic spending level, there is virtually no hope of achieving a balanced budget.

As Republican leaders have repeatedly stated, “We don’t have a revenue problem; we have a spending problem.”

“Republicans must ask themselves whether they’re willing to address this spending problem. I hope the answer is yes — and I will continue doing everything I can to ensure it is,” said Sen. Johnson.

The full text of the report can be found here.