Senator Ron Johnson was in the Northwoods last week, visiting area businesses to talk about what he foresees in the area of economic climate.

Johnson made stops at the Phillips Medisize facility and then went on to Flambeau River Papers in Park Falls.

Johnson, who has been in office for two years, admitted that things are in chaos in Washington – especially in the area of finances and he noted that the biggest problem is that the lawmakers seem to be in denial.

“They aren't calling it that – but I will – our government is functionally bankrupt,” Johnson said. “So, what do we do? We have the printing presses so we just print some more “pretty money.”

“There are so many who do not understand the depth of the problem,” Johnson said. “What my business backgrounds has taught me is that first you identify the problem, then you look at the root cause and then you begin to seek solutions. But, first you have to admit that there is a problem.

Johnson said that he had been looking forward to seeing the Philllips facility because he is “in plastics” himself.

“I understand how this business works – we are actually their competitors – that is why I wanted to speak to the employees today about what's coming down the line from Washington,” Johnson said.

“We have to start laying the groundwork for a more prosperous America and we need to start building some groundwork that will hold up.”

“Having acknowledged all that gloom and doom, I have to say that in the last few months I think I see some breaking of the log jam,” Johnson said. “We now know that building a good life for families is important and if we're going to have a prosperous America – then we need to change the way we do business with our businesses.”
Johnson said that now the elections are over it is time for everyone to get down to work to try to accomplish as much as they can in their term – which he added can only be done if the parties let down the party walls.

“I say, let's just get down to governing,” Johnson said.

He said the government needs to get out of the way of businesses working to be prosperous.

“We don't need so much intrusion in our lives,” Johnson said. “We have placed a heavy onus of a regulatory burden on business, which accomplishes nothing more than costing the government to monitor and maintain and cost businesses and creates more problems than it could ever resolve.”
Johnson said he favors just stepping back and “getting out of businesses way.”

He called social security a “Ponzi Scheme” of monumental proportions and added, “The Social Security Trust Fund is not a solvent system.”
He said the Social Security was never meant to be a full retirement program and will be even less so in the future.

Johnson said the biggest roadblock on the road to prosperity is the demonizing of businesses – who are really the ones, he says that should be celebrated not punished.
“We already can't compete globally, but America is addicted to government. It would be very hard to sell Americans on doing it ourselves and not having all these entitlement programs.”

“We've made a ton of promises, but we haven't kept very many,” he said.

If we tell people that in order to keep Social Security strong we're going to have to raise the age of the individuals that will qualify. That's going to be a real hard sell. People like being taken care of by the government.”

“But, I don't want to leave you on a negative note, there is real hope if we can just start working with each other, drop the partisanship and work together. That's the only way anything ever gets done and it is true for the United States.

Johnson took a tour of the plant, stopping often to ask questions of his guides and to look over the kinds of machines that Medisize uses. Some of the equipment and the products are considered off limits to the public because the company has some confidential military contracts.

Following his tour, Johnson spoke to about 30 Phillips Medisize employees for about a half an hour.

View original article