WASHINGTON — In an interview on “The Story with Martha MacCallum” Tuesday, U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) spoke about President Biden and the Democrat’s reckless spending and the negative long-term burdens of debt and dependency.

The television interview comes after the senator published an opinion piece in The Wall Street Journal on Monday.

Video of the interview can be found here, and excerpts are below.

“When I came to congress in 2011, we were $14 trillion in debt. Now we're $28 trillion in debt and that doesn't include the $1.9 trillion that they just passed in the fifth or sixth COVID relief bill, and now they’re talking about over $2 trillion for an infrastructure bill. Probably about 5% of that is for roads and bridges, no more than 20% of what most people define as true infrastructure. The rest is going to be spent, and not in a very productive way from my standpoint.”

“Everybody loves free money. I realize that is a very bipartisan thing to support, but the problem is again, we're $28 trillion in debt. We don't have an unlimited checking account. We are mortgaging our children’s future. I think it's immoral. That is the point of my Wall Street Journal op-ed today. Nobody really knows where all this money gets spent. Remember President Obama had the $800 billion stimulus. Probably no more than $100 billion of that went toward infrastructure. Remember you sheepishly said those projects really weren't all that shovel ready, so this money will be frittered away but it’s going to be added to the debt burden of our children.”

“It’s entirely possible if it's reasonable, if we know exactly where the money is going to be spent. If it's spent on real infrastructure, places where it's needed, and if it’s paid for through things like user fees and toll roads. There’s a host of ways of actually paying for this, and if you are going to borrow money, at least if you're borrowing money on real infrastructure that will last for 20, 30, or 40 years, that makes sense. The problem is we have already committed to borrowing about $6 trillion since the COVID recession began and there's no end in sight, and it's completely irresponsible.”

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