By Jason Stein

At the state GOP convention in Wisconsin Dells, U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson said Saturday he would use the upcoming raising of the federal debt ceiling to seek cuts in federal spending and deficits, rejecting what he called “scare-mongering” by President Obama’s administration.

In what he termed a "coming out" press conference, the GOP senator said that Democrats were seeking to avoid difficult cuts in spending by talking of the dire consequences of not acting by the end of the summer to raise the amount of money that the federal government can borrow to keep paying its bills.

“They’re trying to blackmail us essentially,” Johnson said.

Johnson said that the Obama administration needed to plan to manage its finances in the event that the debt ceiling was not raised because of politics. 

If the ceiling is not raised, Johnson said the federal government could still use its $2.6 trillion in yearly revenues to pay the $250 billion in annual interest on its debt and "100% of Social Security” and still have more than $1 trillion left over for “essential defense, security, safety and health."

U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner has said that the economic consequences of the federal government defaulting on its debt could be catastrophic.

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