Discusses getting Americans back to work, Biden’s radical policies, big government spending

 WASHINGTON – In radio interviews this week with WCLO’s Tim Bremel, WTMJ’s Jeff Wagner, WISN’s Dan O’ Donnell, and WISN’s Matt Kittle, U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) commented on getting Americans back to work, the Biden administration’s radical policies, and the massive spending packages, all threatening to halt economic recovery.  

 On Colonial pipeline cyber-attack:

 “We are incredibly vulnerable and no administration has paid enough attention and taken it seriously enough. There are many aspects to this but first of all I think it’s interesting that one of President Biden’s cabinet’s secretaries admitted what is true – that the most efficient and safest way of transporting fossil fuels, oil and gas, are pipelines and yet one of the first actions that President Biden took was to halt construction of the keystone XL pipeline – again it makes no sense.” (Sen. Johnson, Your Talk Show with Tim Bremel, 5/17/21)

On Biden’s reckless spending:

“Well there is so much money sloshing around, I would take it away from so much of their liberal wish list items that they have passed in the 1.9 trillion dollar bill. How about the money that is appropriated in the out years, 721 billion dollars of COVID relief isn’t going to be spent in fiscal year 2021.” (Sen. Johnson, Your Talk Show with Tim Bremel, 5/17/21)

On Ending Federal Pandemic Unemployment Bonus:

“First to you have recognize Wisconsin’s unemployment rate is 3.8 percent. You know, when I went through econ 101, my economic professors were telling us that full employment was 5 percent. So we’re under what is historically considered full employment and literally for months as I travel around the state, and I’m sure the other Republican congressman have traveled around their districts, the number one complaint by far that business owners have and the thing that’s holding them back from getting fully back into business is they can’t hire people. And what should be blamed is the fact that the federal government has continued to plus up state unemployment benefits and literally incentivizing people to stay on the couch, not to re-engage in the labor market.” (Sen. Johnson, The Jeff Wagner Show, 5/18/21)

On getting Americans back to work:

“We have been hearing for months, which is why the congressional delegation joined my effort almost immediately but we’ve been hearing for months that employers simply cannot hire people. This is across the board, this is in service industry, and this is throughout manufacturing. I talked to one Wisconsin manufacturer – 1,000 job openings. We are, we right now are from my standpoint witnessing a witch’s brew with all the ingredients being concocted for stagflation. And you know what is happening of course is wages are being bid up and that’s a good thing, as long as inflation doesn’t outpace the wages and that’s certainly what could happen here when we have the kind of supply dislocations we have right now. When manufacturers can’t hire enough people to fill out their shifts to produce the products that other businesses are looking for. So many businesses are on allocation, on basic raw materials as far as Wisconsin home builders. The price of a new home is increased by 36,000 dollars because of the lumber price increase.” (Sen. Johnson, The Dan O’Donnell Show, 5/19/21)

On crisis at the border:

“We’ve built about 450 miles of the wall, we contracted for, which means we are basically going to pay for another 250 miles of wall and now President Biden signed an executive order halting the construction. . . we’ve bought and paid for to the tune of about $2 billion dollars’ worth of wall. . . the point I made yesterday on the floor of the senate is, securing the border used to be a bi-partisan goal, in 2006 they passed the Secure Fence Act, it passed 80-19 in the Senate. . . It is unfortunate that this has become a partisan issue. You would think that would be bipartisan you’d really want to secure our homeland and part of that part and parcel to a secure homeland is having a secure border which we don’t have right now on the southwest border.” (Sen. Johnson, The Jay Weber Show, 5/21/21)

On school closings:

“We dusted off a law that says that when there are five members of the Senate homeland security committee, when we request documents, the agencies shall turn them over to us. So we sent a request to the CDC director as well as the Secretary of HHS requesting, let’s say demanding, communication between those agencies and the teachers unions and anybody else they consulted on in terms of some these policies. We will see whether or not they actually comply with that. If not, we will press the case further.” (Sen. Johnson, The Jay Weber Show, 5/21/21)

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