Carrying the torches

Johnson believes the United States is on the verge of an economic collapse that he compares to the 1998 Russian financial crisis, which he believes can be stopped only by balancing the federal budget. As such, he promises to submit a balanced budget for the year 2013 and promises to veto any bills containing expenditures in excess of revenues. He promises to look at every decision as a cost-benefit analysis. His budget would cut federal expenditures by 43% in every area, "across the board," including "responsible entitlement reform," because the "math is simple: federal spending must be cut not by millions or billions, but by trillions." He calls the notion "that we can control spending and balance the budget without reforming Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security" "lunacy." Johnson supports amending the U.S. Constitution to require an annual balanced budget.

Johnson did not support the Troubled Asset Relief Program, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, the Tax Relief, Unemployment Insurance Reauthorization, and Job Creation Act of 2010, or any other "bailout" or "stimulus" bills, and opposes President Barack Obama's proposed American Jobs Act. He believes the federal spending in these laws is wasteful and ineffectual, and calls them "bloated." He famously quipped, "My next-door neighbor's two dogs have created more shovel ready jobs than this current administration."

Johnson supports ending the federal personal and corporate income tax system and replacing it with the FairTax reform proposal, a national consumption tax on new goods and services. He believes the FairTax would "reboot" the American economy without impacting those at or under the poverty level, who would not be subject to it. He believes that abolishing the federal corporate income tax, which he says is the second highest in the world, would create tens of millions of jobs immediately. Due to his stance on taxes, David Weigel described him as "the original Tea Party candidate".