‘Too Many Dollars Chasing Too Few Goods’: Ron Johnson Breaks Down ‘Shocking’ Devaluation Of Dollar For Tucker Carlson

Republican Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson told Daily Caller News Foundation co-founder Tucker Carlson on Wednesday that the devaluation of the U.S. dollar amounts to a “silent tax” on American taxpayers.

As President Donald Trump’s “big, beautiful bill” moves to the Senate, Republican senators have begun sounding the alarm over how the package could raise the national debt. While discussing the U.S. debt crisis on “The Tucker Carlson Show,” Carlson asked Johnson to define what a “debt crisis” means and how it plays out in the American economy.

“Depends whether it’s a chronic or acute crisis. I’d say we’re already in a chronic debt crisis,” Johnson said. “That is what I would consider the devaluation of the dollar. I laid out, we talked about this, my pre-pandemic options going back to 98, 2014, 2019. So a dollar you held in 1998 is only worth 51 cents today.”

“When I ran in 2010, that dollar is worth about 68 cents. A dollar you held during Obama in 2014 is worth 74 cents. A dollar you held just in 2019 is only worth 80 cents. So, again, that is the devaluation of the dollar. That’s inflation,” Johnson said. “It’s the silent tax.”

The U.S. has experienced a surge in inflation since former President Joe Biden took office in January 2021, with non-seasonally adjusted prices rising by 20.1% as of June 2024. According to data from the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, that marked an increase from 19.9% in April 2024 and 16.3% the previous year, translating to a 3.3% year-over-year inflation gain in May 2024. (RELATED: ‘Big Ugly Bill’: Dems Plot To Make Trump’s ‘Beautiful’ Package Politically Toxic For GOP Lawmakers)

“This is why everything is so expensive,” Carlson said. “That’s how you spend 300 bucks at dinner, and you’re like, ‘I didn’t even get drunk.’ Like, how did that happen? That’s the effect.”

“Yeah, and that’s why you had four-year high inflation. So that I would consider the chronic debt crisis. It just continues, and it’s the danger. We have not tamed inflation yet,” Johnson said. “We’ve tamed it, but we haven’t conquered it. So I think that’s always on the horizon, particularly if we continue [to] deficit spend.”

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With the budget reconciliation package narrowly clearing Congress on Thursday in a 215-214-1 vote, senators have grown increasingly concerned about provisions tied to the national debt. Johnson has voiced his dissatisfaction with the bill, pushing for a return to pre-pandemic spending levels — amounting to nearly $6 trillion in cuts.

Johnson went on to tell Carlson how if bond markets continue to react by “driving interest rates up higher” and “increasing the amount of interest expense” it will crowd out “other spending.”

“So an acute debt crisis would be where you have a bond market failure and like what happened to Greece. All of a sudden, you can’t sell your debt,” Johnson said. “So you either print the money, which sparks another round of 40-to-50-year high inflation, devaluing the currency rapidly. We’re not necessarily immune to hyperinflation. Other countries have experienced it.”

In July 2024, the national debt topped $35 trillion for the first time in U.S. history, rising by more than $7 trillion during Biden’s administration. During Trump’s first term, the debt also grew by $8 trillion, largely due to the CARES Act and other COVID-19 relief efforts.

Carlson asked Johnson what a “failure to sell your debt in a bond auction” would look like for the U.S. The senator said that while the country has the advantage of printing money, that power can be abused.

“So we can get by that moment, except for you’re printing dollars, and inflation is pretty easy to define. It’s too many dollars chasing too few goods,” Johnson said. “So you just print all those dollars, and, again, the dollar devalues. The cost of your debt is lowered. Again, it’s a silent way of addressing these massive deficits.”

In addition to Johnson, Republican Utah Sen. Mike Lee is the latest to say the “big, beautiful bill” won’t pass the Senate in its current form. Lee told Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk on Wednesday that the bill fails to properly address the “spending crisis.”

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