WASHINGTON — U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) said the following Thursday regarding his votes on a two-bill appropriations deal:

“Instead of passing 12 individual appropriations, on time, in an open and transparent legislative process, Congress just passed a massive spending deal 80 days into the new fiscal year. Whenever Congress spends $1.4 trillion, many good and worthy programs are funded, which is why I voted for the spending bill covering defense and homeland security. But the price for funding necessary programs was simply too high to obtain my overall support for both bills. There are virtually no cuts to any significant program and the tax extender package was not paid for, nor did it include a fix to the “retail glitch” caused by sloppy drafting of the 2017 tax reform bill — all in all, a pretty ugly display of Washington, D.C.’s dysfunction. Passing my committee’s Prevent Government Shutdowns Act would go a long way toward providing a fiscal discipline that could help prevent this kind of legislative abuse.”

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