The Man With The 2% Plan: Presidential Candidate Perry Johnson Campaigns In Concord: Watch

CONCORD, NH — The concept is pretty simple: lower federal discretionary spending by 2 percent every year until the deficit and debt are brought under control.

Perry Johnson is a Republican from Michigan who is in his mid-70s and owns close to 80 businesses, all of which, he said, had never gone bankrupt or acquired significant debt. He learned, early on, while in grad school, with creditors knocking on the door, that debt was not a good thing. Most of his work has been in the corporate quality control setting, including with major automobile companies.

Johnson’s plan is simple in its promotion but a bit more complicated and detailed in its implementation. He said there is overlap in the federal government structure, too many employees, and too many departments. The specifics are outlined in his book, “Two Cents to Save America,” which includes a foreword by Arthur Laffer, an economist from the Reagan administration.

Johnson called the situation with inflation “comical” — he suggested the press reports were being tampered with by pulling out necessities like food, fuel, and housing out of the numbers. The focus, he said, needed to be on the economy, which started with federal spending. Instead of piling on 3 to 5 percent of last year’s budget each year, federal expenditures would be frozen. From there, discretionary spending — the military budget, education, some health benefits, transportation, and other sectors, would be cut by 2 percent every year.

“There’s a lot more to the plan,” he said.

The interest on the debt is now around $900 billion, the highest ever, and so high it is about one-fourth of all the taxes collected by the federal government. Johnson called the interest payments “nutty” and said they were not sustainable and needed to be lowered by cutting spending.

Mandatory spending, like Social Security, unemployment, labor, Medicare and Medicaid, veterans’ benefits, and other items, would not be cut. Johnson said directors and employees who made the goal would be rewarded. Johnson said President Donald Trump did a good job but spent too much money and was hampered but the permanent bureaucracy. If elected, unlike the Trump administration, where appointees were not always adequately vetted to support the incoming administration’s values and priorities, Johnson said he would only place people who supported the plan into the positions.

From there, bringing the country back toward energy independence will help “boom the economy” while lowering inflation and costs due to domestic production. The United States also extract its own oil was cleaning than other countries, protecting the plant in the process. Foreign producers, he said, were dirtier.

“The economy is the key success of every single country,” he said. “All the other countries went down, went down because of the economy. You can even go back to Rome. Rome went down, they couldn’t pay their troops. Russia, the U.S.S.R., had to shut down the wall because they couldn’t keep up with the arms race.”

Johnson said the only way to sustain the military, Social Security, and Medicare. He was also concerned about the dollar not being the global currency.

Johnson believed some Democrats could be brought over to his plan if elected. They understood, he said, the importance of preserving critical mandatory programs. He said competition, too, made American life standards better than other countries because it lowered costs. Johnson noted the same thing could be done in medicine and college — where prices were skyrocketing.

Johnson, in 2022, attempted to gain ballot access to run for governor in Michigan but did not meet the signature requirements, according to published reports. He was reportedly toying with a run for the Senate next year before deciding to run for the White House, announcing his run in early March.

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