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Ron Johnson slammed for 'measuring' distance to Moon in graphics to stop $1.9T Covid relief: 'Incredibly stupid'

The senator took to graphics to show how big a stack of a trillion one-dollar bills would be

Ever since Republican Senator Ron Johnson of Wisconsin took to the Senate floor to present his case against the Democrats' $1.9 trillion Covid-19 relief bill aka the American Rescue Plan, many on social media are calling him an "idiot". Addressing the floor on Wednesday, March 3, Johnson tried to stall the bill in what a user on Twitter called an "incredibly stupid way of measuring policy."

"I think we've grown immune to these vast amounts of money," he said on March 3. "I always knew we were going to be in big trouble, when we stopped talking about hundreds of billions of dollars and switched to talking about trillions of dollars. And so we talk about one trillion or two trillion, it just doesn't sound as much as a couple hundred billion, or 800 billion, which was the stimulus package under the Obama administration."

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The senator then took to graphics to show how long it would take to earn $1.9 trillion at $1 per second. As per the graphic, it would take more than 60,000 years to accumulate $1.9 trillion at that rate. To drive his point further, the GOP senator pointed out that "the human race began to develop language about 50,000 years ago."

This was followed by a second graphic depicting how big a stack of a trillion one-dollar bills would be. According to Johnson's graphic, the stack would be 67,866 miles high. "That is what we are debating spending," Johnson said, adding, "A stack of dollar bills that extends more than halfway the distance to the moon." In order to further drive his point, he said, "this is at a point in time when we're about $28 trillion in debt. That singles stack would be over 1.9 million miles. Or if we put it relative to the moon, that would be eight stacks; seven stacks to go directly to the moon and one further stack that's 95 percent of the way there."

"These are astonishing sums that we're talking about, and the majority party here wants to jam this through a reconciliation process," Johnson added. "No consultation with our side. Just blow it through here, 20 hours of debate, a vote-a-rama, pass $1.9 trillion in spending, and go home."

"At some point in time, there will be a day of reckoning, the debt crisis, and it won't be pretty," Johnson went on to add. "My suggestion, at least as we consider this: is let us actually have a debate. Let's have a discussion. Let's consider the amendments. Let's not do this in 20, 24, 30 hours. Let's take the time to seriously consider what we are doing to our children in contemplating spending a stack of dollar bills... extending more than halfway to the moon."

Twitter had taken to take jabs, mock and call out Johnson. All that talking and graphics but, "What is the fucking point?" one asked. "Seems like an incredibly stupid way of measuring policy but ok," one user tweeted. "This really drives down the point. How will he illustrate number of covid deaths?" another user mocked him. "Right! ‘If the average person is 15” thick, and you multiply that by the number of lies being told by Gop it would be a gazillion mile high’ - what is this supposed to prove? Idiot!" another user pointed out. 

Considering the humourous nature of the presented graphics, social media users predict a flood of memes. "Oh this will be so photoshopped," one tweeted. And one immediately responded with a meme. People are calling him selfish. "Just this once think of the people you were elected to represent. I'm embarrassed that you are from Oshkosh. Stop being such an a$$ with all these stories that there weren't weapons at the Capitol on Jan 6th. And all your lies about voter fraud," one said.