Senator speaks to business roundtable

By: David Brazy

U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson says he is a man on a mission.

That mission brought him to the Watertown Municipal Airport Monday afternoon to spread his message about what he has learned about the federal budget and convey that information to voters. The Republican senator from Wisconsin said a major component of the nation's economic and budgetary problems is not enough people understand the depth and cause of the problem.

"From my standpoint, the root cause of our cultural and economic problems, by the way I think our cultural problems are driving our economic problems, is truthfully the size, scope, all the rules, all the regulations and all of the government's intrusions into our lives and the resulting cost and debt," Johnson said.

Johnson spoke in the hangar of the airport to a crowd of around 75 people at a business roundtable. He gave a 30-minute budget presentation and afterwards held a 30-minute question and answer session. Before the presentation began, Johnson sat down with the Daily Times to talk about his first two years in the Senate and to outline his goals for the discussion.

Johnson said he wants to build a consensus on the size of the country's budget problems. He said before any solutions can be put forward, everyone must find common ground on what the problem actually is.

"Before you do that, I always say, in any 12-step program, what's the first step in solving the problem? Admitting you have a problem," Johnson said. "The next part is describing it accurately, because if you don't your solutions will be off the mark."

As part of the education push, Johnson recently released projections for where the country's deficits will be out three decades. According to Johnson's numbers, in 30 years the country will have amassed a more than $106 trillion deficit. He said this number is greater than the net private value of $96 trillion currently estimated in the U.S.

Johnson said he started to compile the numbers after he and other Republican senators were invited to dinner with President Barack Obama to discuss the deficit issue. Johnson said the president did a pretty good job of laying out the problem as he saw it and his staff asked the Republican senators to bring forward their own plan as well.

"As we were meeting just as Republican senators a lot of people were kicking around ideas and I raised my hand and said, 'Guys the first thing we have to do is agree on the extent of the problem,' and that spawned this project." Johnson said. "Those are some pretty eye-popping numbers ... we need to consider and take a look at structurally reforming these programs so they are available for young people."

Johnson said when he holds discussion with young citizens and asks them what they believe they will get from Social Security and Medicare, they say without exception they don't expect to get anything from the programs.

"It's utterly unfair and it doesn't have to be that way. It goes to show you that you have a population of citizens that would be pretty receptive to reforms," Johnson said.

However, he acknowledged the political pitfalls that surround any discussion of reforms for Social Security or Medicare. He said a perfect example is what happened to Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., when he put forward his "Road Map for America" plan which involved Medicare reforms.

The reaction from the other side, Johnson said, was to run television ads with a Paul Ryan look-alike pushing a grandmother off a cliff.

"It's a matter of getting facts and figures on the table, rather than the political demagoguery ... Now that doesn't help solve the problem at all. Even if you don't agree with his approach, let's look at it and see what it will actually do," Johnson said. "I'm not throwing solutions on the table yet, I'm still trying to define the problem and lay out what I would say is a solutions menu."

During the question and answer session Lake Mills resident Randy Otto asked Johnson what he believed would be the issue or catalyst for Americans and Congress to start making a serious push for reforms.

Johnson said he is afraid it is going to be the actual crisis. He said the only way to prevent that is doing what he does here now. He added he wished he had a bigger voice, but he encouraged everyone in attendance to talk to their neighbors, friends and colleagues to spread the debt message.

"We share the same goal. We want a prosperous America. I'm concerned about every American. I want everyone to have an opportunity to build a good life for themselves and their family," Johnson said. "So we share that, we have differences in opinion on how we achieve that prosperity. A guy like me thinks it's through the private sector and not through the growth of government."

Also during the presentation, Johnson talked about the skyrocketing costs of a college education as a negative unintended consequence of government's good intentions. He said in the 1960s the annual cost of college was around $1,000. If college costs had risen with inflation, Johnson said, today it would cost a little under $7,400. But in reality it is closer to $18,000 on average, Johnson said.

One explanation for the rapid rise, Johnson said, is the government injected huge amounts of money for grants and loans into the system to make it easier for students to attend school.

"That's one example of negative consequences. They tried to make college more accessible, because that is a good thing, but we have made it less accessible because of government pouring all that money into it and making it easier to get into debt. We have made it less affordable," Johnson said.

Johnson said he recognizes this will be an uphill struggle. He doesn't anticipate any sweeping reforms to be passed by Congress, but he said each change will have to be fought for and will come in small increments.

"We won't solve these problems with a 90-yard Hail Mary pass. There won't be some grand bargain. To me this is going to be an ongoing struggle, so rather than that Hail Mary pass, I view this as it's going to be 3 1/2 yards and a cloud of dust. 3 1/2 and a cloud of dust," Johnson said. "Hopefully it will be 3 1/2 yards so after three downs we get a first down and we can keep going. Hopefully we start addressing this in a serious enough fashion where we don't hit a debt crisis because who knows what happens then."