WI-Sen: Ron Johnson--frequent rider on the government gravy train
When we last left the great state of Wisconsin, the campaign of GOP Senate candidate Ron Johnson was being forced to answer for the revelation that Mr. No Big Government had sought and received a government-backed loan during the early days of his business career.
The campaign gave the dismissive response that "An industrial revenue bond is neither special treatment nor a government payment or subsidy."
Let's see them try to explain how a a government payment is not a government payment:
A railroad line to Senate candidate Ron Johnson's plastics factory was built with the assistance of a federal grant.
According to documents from the Oshkosh city clerk's office, an Urban Development Action Grant in the amount of $75,000 was used to build a rail spur to Pacur, a plastics manufacturing company owned by Johnson.
Team Johnson immediately blasted the story, saying that "we have highways, railroads, post offices, water and electrical services among other public services that businesses rely on each day."
This, in short, is an asinine assertion. All these infrastructure components cited by the Johnson campaign exist because their construction is for the public good, which includes businesses but also means the citizenry at-large. This grant was to give a dedicated rail line for one plastics company.
The public did not benefit from its construction, Pacur did. Their conflation of a dedicated rail spur to water and electrical infrastructure is telling. It is pretty evident from their analogy that their view is that government can only be as large as it needs to be to cater to the whims of corporate America.
Everything else is "big government."
Johnson's business was not self-made. It had a lot of assistance from his fellow citizens of Wisconsin - and the rest of America for that matter. Why can't Johnson bring himself to have enough humility to say thanks America. Johnson promises to change Washington. Do we really need another millionaire hypocrite pretending to care about what happens to the middle-class. Johnson subscribes to Bush's economic policies - you know the ones that drove the economic bus off a cliff. That is not change America can believe in.
Ron Johnson may not know much about public policy, care about the middle-class or what the U.S. Constitution descibes as the common good, but he does know about talking out both sides of his two faces -
Johnson has adopted an all-green design and logo, giving the impression that he is a friend of the environment. But he is fervent supporter of fossil fuels, defending BP against recent criticisms and calling climate change theories "lunacy" and "not proven by any stretch of the imagination.” (Johnson has suggested sunspots have caused recent weather changes, despite sunspots being at historic lows.)
Johnson demands a smaller, less-involved government, saying our current one is "robbing the bank accounts of future generations of Americans." But even while Johnson calls government spending and subsidies a "threat to our freedom" and insists "government doesn't create jobs," he refuses to acknowledge that his company received millions of dollars in industrial revenue bonds. Johnson's campaign maintains the money he received was not a government handout. Yet this exact form of government subsidized loan is what fiscal conservative temple The Cato Institute calls "corporate welfare."
...Johnson could not be more different than Feingold when it comes to creativity and a voice for Wisconsin. Johnson is a voice for money. He admits as much, saying of Wisconsin's loss of manufacturing jobs to NAFTA "there are always winners and losers." For a candidate who complains about a private sector tax base, those "losers" include the 177,000-odd manufacturing jobs Wisconsin has lost in the last decade; that's 177,000 incomes that paid taxes.
...For solutions to entitlement reform, Johnson points to fellow Wisconsinite and incumbent GOP Congressman Paul Ryan. (It's noteworthy that while Johnson castigates opponent Feingold for being a career politician, he reveres Congressman Ryan, whose never held a job outside government since graduating college in 1992. Spectacular doublethink).
Gosh it seem like Johnson is just another Republican that wants to create a dog eat dog America all the while milking the government cash cow for funds that help make him wealthy. That does display some self made attitude if the new definition of self made is to drain funds from tax payers and than complaining about government handouts. Johnson is your typical right-wing extremist welfare baby - handouts are good for him, but he believes it is wrong to give struggling Americans a helping hand.
WI GOP congressman supporting Ron Johnson surprised that Johnson supports Great Lakes oil drilling.
Ron Johnson, a wealthy business executive and leading Republican candidate for U.S. Senate in Wisconsin this year, is beginning to receive scrutiny for his far right views. He has been criticized recently for opposing an anti-sex offenders bill, the Child Victim Act, and for saying that he is “glad there’s global warming.” Last month, when asked if he would support drilling for oil in the Great Lakes, Johnson — who owns more than $100,000 in BP stock — replied, “I think we have to, get the oil where it is.” At a town hall on Wednesday in Howards Grove, Wisconsin, ThinkProgress asked Rep. Tom Petri (R-WI) — who was sporting a Ron Johnson for Senate bumper sticker — if he agreed with Johnson’s support for Great Lakes oil drilling. Petri said he personally hasn’t supported Great Lakes drilling, but seemed genuinely baffled by Johnson’s radical views, and refused to comment.
Whether there should be drilling in the Great Lakes is pretty extreme, but let's say we did. Would Johnson be voting for that because it is genuinely better than developing an energy plan that is cleaner and sustainable or because it would put more money in his pocket while he plays golf. And why oh why is Johnson against the Child Victim Act? Because he was afraid that giving victims their day in court would cost the scumbags who assaulted them too much money. That's right Wisconsin we need somebody in Washington who will look out for the financial interests of sexual predators. Needless to say Johnson is the favorite of the far rights zealots of the Tea Party.
