Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) has been telling anyone who will listen that it is time to make major cuts, including to President Donald Trump's "big, beautiful bill."

According to a recent interview on "Sunday Morning Features," the senator will be voting "no" to the legislation unless someone can address the impact on national debt, as Fox News reported.

The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget estimates that the national debt, including interest, will increase by around $3 trillion as a result of the spending measure that the House enacted in late May.

Another interview

In another interview, with former Fox News host Tucker Carlson, Johnson again talked about the deficit.

Talking about how he's viewed, Johnson said, "I'm generally the skunk in the room, or, you know, the kid who says the emperor has no clothes. I just ask my colleagues, 'Hey, does anybody know how much we spent last year in total?'”

In terms of money

The lawmaker explained some of the terms that are frequently bandied about in federal spending conversations that some might not understand:

"There’s discretionary spending, which we appropriate, and then there’s mandatory spending that just gets spent. It’s on automatic pilot. So it’s out of sight, out of mind, and it’s completely out of control."

Johnson said that while many speak only to discretionary spending, which is frequently debated in Congress, that makes up only about 25 percent of the budget, and total spending is around $6.3 trillion.

"Understand, the federal government is the largest financial entity in the world," Johnson said. "We [in Congress], in theory, are the 535 members of the board of directors, and nobody really knows in total how much the federal government spent because we never talk about it."

A cap on spending

When asked if there is any cap on spending, Johnson confirmed that there is none: "You qualify, you get it."

"What has happened over the years is, in addition to Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, they’ve slid what should be, in my mind, discretionary spending into mandatory.

The senator was questioned about how much of the budget was supplied by taxes when Carlson asked, "We're going to spend $7 trillion this year. What’s the bottom line number on tax receipts?"

Johnson responded, saying, "About $5.1 trillion. So we’ve got a structural deficit of around 6% right now." When asked further, where the money for the deficit spending comes from, the lawmaker said, "We borrow it or we print it.