Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) lashed out at the upper chamber today as a symbol of government’s runaway power in Americans’ lives.

“It’s an alternate universe. No, this — this place is a joke. I mean, bottom line, this is an absurd process,” Johnson said on CNBC. “It certainly proves the genius of our founding fathers that government should be limited. I mean, the fact that we have this place having such an enormous effect on our economy, on people’s livelihood, is wrong. It’s simply wrong.”

“So, I’m the manufacturer. I’m always looking for the cause of problems. The cause of the problem is that government is far too large. It’s far too intrusive into our lives. It exerts way too much control over our economy, but that’s where we’re at. And, you know, I have no — I don’t know too many people that really think government’s effective or efficient. Why would they think the governing body of that government would be particularly effective or efficient as well?” he continued. “This is a mere symptom of the overall problem in a system of government that has become too large and too intrusive in our lives.”

Johnson also slammed the reign of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) as “a one-man dictatorship.”

“And under his leadership, the Senate has been a charade while I’ve been here for two years. I serve on the Budget Committee. You know how many times we’ve voted on a budget in the Budget Committee? Zero. We haven’t even marked one up,” he said.

The senator also decried the shady negotiations. “We’re here at the end of the year, a couple of elected officials with their unelected staffs, are doing these deals behind closed doors,” he said. “I don’t know what’s happening behind there. Am I all of a sudden going to get a product sometime in the middle of the day and say, ‘you’ve got to vote on it right away’? I mean, that is an absurd process.”

“We’ve turned the Senate from a legislating body into a deal-making body, and that’s just wrong.”