× Expand David Michael Miller

In September 2017, U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson spoke to the Madison Area Builders Association and declared he would support the Trump tax plan only if it’s pro-growth and doesn’t increase the national debt. Three months later he voted for a plan projected to create the biggest national deficit in at least three generations.

It was a stunning turnabout for a politician whose number one issue has been the national debt. Johnson was a self-proclaimed “citizen legislator” who decided to run for the Senate in 2010 to bring purity to politics. He was among a group of newcomers, he told conservative talk radio host Vicki McKenna, “that actually have a backbone” and will do everything possible “to inject that spine into the rest of Washington to make a stand.”

And the stand that needed to be taken was obvious: “to save our nation from bankruptcy,” because America’s freedom is being threatened by “unsustainable levels of spending and debt,” he told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

“I’m not trying to scare people. I wish we weren’t in this situation,” he told the newspaper, while warning of possible Greece-like riots in America over the deficit. “That’s what’s ahead of us!”

“We’re bankrupting America,” he told the Green Bay Press Gazette, and the economy “is in a coma” because of this.

Johnson became Washington’s premier deficit scold, with endless charts on America’s debt and a PowerPoint presentation he foisted on members of both parties. His town hall meetings in Wisconsin became lectures on the deficit.

“Both privately and publicly, the senator talked about only Obamacare and the debt and deficit” a 2015 story in the National Journal noted. “Some Republican leaders reported hearing the same presentation on the subjects — delivered via PowerPoint — three times.”

It is striking to read through Johnson’s press releases from his first few years in office. “Our country is going bankrupt, we shouldn’t be going home,” he chided at a 2011 press conference condemning the Senate’s vacation over the July Fourth weekend.

“Simply put, we are committing intergenerational theft,” he charged in a Nov. 16, 2011, press release. “It is immoral.”

“The national debt is by far our biggest national security threat,” he warned in a Feb. 13, 2012, release.

Over and over he vilified Barack Obama for the president’s lack of leadership on the issue. “The Obama administration is leading America down the path of economic disaster,” he warned in a Sept. 4, 2012, release.

Obama is “more than willing to increase the debt burden on our children and grandchildren,” he charged in an Oct. 16, 2013, statement on a new debt ceiling deal.

Month after month the drum beat continued, a relentless, pounding message of deficit doom. And then, about three years into his first term, Johnson began to speak less of the deficit and address other issues as well. “Him moving away from the PowerPoint presentation probably allows him to connect more with voters,” as Kurt Bauer, president and CEO of Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce, told the National Journal.

Still, it remained a key issue for Johnson — until Republican Donald Trump became president. Obama had inherited the worst recession since the Great Depression, with falling tax receipts and a need for fiscal stimulus to prevent a total economic meltdown. Trump had inherited an economy with low unemployment and robust jobs growth, but showed no interest in reducing the deficit. Yet there were no Cassandra-like warnings from the Wisconsin’s prophet of deficit despair.

Worse, the man who frequently argued that American needed to think 30 years ahead on budgeting offered no criticism of the proposed Trump tax plan’s long-term impact on the deficit and his vote helped ensure its passage.

“The number one component of a solution to many of America’s problems is robust economic growth,” his press release hailing the bill’s passage noted. “Passing pro-growth tax reform that allows American business to compete globally is a necessary step. No major piece of legislation is ever perfect, but this bill is a significant improvement over our current tax system.”

But the tax breaks passed are so massive they ensure historic deficits. As Reuters reported: “The national debt is on track to approach 100 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) by 2028, said the nonpartisan CBO, which analyzes legislation for Congress. ‘That amount is far greater than the debt in any year since just after World War II,’ CBO said.” It forecast a cumulative deficit of $11.7 trillion for 2018-2027.

Johnson had insisted for eight years that a high deficit is terribly injurious to the American economy. Now he had passed legislation that would drive it to historic highs. As a result, “major damage was done” to the economy, according to the fiscally conservative Peter G. Peterson Foundation.

Johnson hasn’t offered a word of criticism of the president who created the nation’s worst long-term deficit situation in 75 years. But how can he, when Johnson is a co-creator of the problem?