Wisconsin Republican Sen. Ron Johnson was brought to UW Oshkosh by the College Republicans on Oct. 30 to speak to students about the state of the nation and how changes need to be made.

Johnson spoke about how he felt the federal government is bankrupting America and how citizens can stop it. Johnson also had slides and charts to aid his presentation.

“[The presentation] was very informative,” Oshkosh freshman Jordan Schettle said. “Although he said that he didn’t want to scare us, it is a little scary looking at the whole picture and realizing that a change needs to happen. Although I personally don’t feel that this coming election will change everything on a whole scale, I feel like it’s a step towards the right direction towards that change.”

Oshkosh sophomore Andrew Simek, a College Republican member,  said he was happy with the presentation.

“It’s always hard to get a turn out around campus,” Simek said. “I am pleased that we got the people that we did get here. They seemed educated and really wanting to further their education. I think it was really an effective event.”

Even with a smaller turnout, Johnson said he was happy with the audience and the audience participation.

“I was pleased to see young people actually sit and listen to what could be potentially considered a boring presentation here, a lot of charts and graphs and a lot of numbers, but I thought people in the audience were pretty well engaged and actually listened to what I was saying,”  Johnson said. “People really are concerned, which is a good thing. Our Republic requires a moral and educated population and unfortunately, very few people understand the information I presented here tonight. The more people that do understand it, the more people will go to the polling booth informed, and make the right decision.”

Johnson said he believes it’s important to educate students.

“Well it’s young people, it’s their lives, it’s their future that is being mortgaged right now and I’m kind of hoping young people will start rebelling a little bit, but peacefully,” Johnson said.

According to Johnson, he is trying to show students a different kind of path.

“This liberal approach of growing government, promising everybody everything, making promises the government simply can’t deliver, delivers the wrong path,” Johnson said. “I’m trying to show a different way. I’m trying to explain to people how unsustainable our current government is and harmful it is to what we all want accomplished.”

Johnson said he believes no matter where you fall on the political spectrum, everyone shares the same goal.

 “We all want a prosperous America; we all want every American to have that opportunity to succeed,” Johnson said. “It’s just we have totally different paths.”

There is a path that will not work which is the path we are on, Johnson said.

“That’s about growing government trying to divvy up the pie making sure everyone has the same equal slice,” Johnson said. 

“That path is almost guaranteed to shrink the pie, shrink everybody’s slice versus the other path of growing the economy, growing that pie so everybody’s slice is larger.”

View original article