Op-Eds and Blogs

In the News: Blog 09/19/2013
GOP: Unite against Obamacare
What can be done about Obamacare? For the majority of Americans opposed to Obamacare, it is a sad fact that as long as President Barack Obama is in the White House and Majority Leader Harry Reid's Democrats control the Senate, repealing or defunding this monstrosity is next to impossible. Elections have consequences. The 2008 election gave ideologically extreme Democrats the White House, a House majority and a filibuster-proof Senate, which allowed Reid to jam through Obamacare the morning of Christmas Eve 2009. In 2012, Obama won another term and Reid maintained an iron grip on the Senate. That is a reality that cannot be ignored as strategies are developed to prevent Obamacare from taking firm or permanent root.
In the News: Blog 08/13/2013
Watertown Daily Times
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.
In the News: Blog 08/12/2013
The Wall Street Journal
With traditional avenues for negotiating budget deals collapsing on Capitol Hill, the White House is reaching out to a band of Senate Republicans who are mostly newcomers to the worn trenches of fiscal warfare. The group of eight Republicans has been meeting regularly with senior White House officials to hash over major fiscal issues as fall deadlines rapidly approach, including four times in the two weeks before Congress began its August recess. The group runs the gamut from former presidential nominee Sen. John McCain (R., Ariz.) to a freshman tea-party ally, Sen. Ron Johnson (R., Wis.), but is notably lacking in top-ranking party officials and budget experts who have been regular fixtures of past fiscal confrontations.
In the News: Blog 08/5/2013
New CRS Memo Shows HHS Secretary is the IPAB-of-One
Op-eds 07/24/2013
USA Today: Say no to Detroit bailouts
<b> Originally published in USA Today, July 14th, 2013 </b> The dominoes have been falling for years: 36 municipalities have gone bankrupt since 2010. Last Thursday, the biggest domino yet fell. The City of Detroit – with debt of $18 billion-- filed for protection to reorganize under Chapter 9 of the federal bankruptcy code. American taxpayers need to watch their wallets. Next will come a call for a federal bailout to alleviate Detroit's pain. Congress should act now to ensure taxpayers aren't forced to pay for decades of mismanagement by liberal politicians and public sector unions.
Op-eds 05/15/2013
Wall Street Journal: How to Prevent Another Benghazi
<b> Originally printed in The Wall Street Journal, May 15th, 2013 </b> In January, for the first time since the Benghazi terrorist attack of Sept. 11, 2012, Hillary Clinton faced the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to testify about the attack. In response to my persistent questioning about what the State Department knew about the nature of the attack, the former secretary of state famously exclaimed: "What difference, at this point, does it make?" New testimony by State Department whistleblowers and an Interim Progress Report prepared by five House Committees show what a huge difference it makes when members of the administration ignore repeated warnings of growing danger, deny requests for additional security and then attempt to cover up their negligence. That dereliction of duty ultimately resulted in the death of four Americans.
In the News: Blog 05/8/2013
UK Mail Online: U.S. State Department's top Libya security adviser: Benghazi decisions were made at the highest levels
The former Regional Security Officer in Tripoli during the months before the Benghazi terror attack that killed the U.S. ambassador told a congressional panel on Wednesday that the State Department's internal review of the diplomatic disaster unfairly let senior political appointees off the hook. Choking back tears, Eric Allan Nordstrom said the investigation into the terror attack, continued Wednesday during a House Oversight and Government Reform Committee hearing, 'matters to me personally, and it matters to my colleagues at the department of state.' 'It matters to the American public for whom we serve, and most importantly, it matters to the friends and family of Ambassador Stevens, Sean Smith, Glen Doherty and Tyrone Woods, who were murdered on September 11, 2012.'
In the News: Blog 04/21/2013
Juneau County Star Tribune: Mauston attorney named to judicial nominating panel
Mauston attorney William T. Curran was one of six named this week to the Wisconsin Federal Nominating Commission, which is charged with moving federal nominations forward, including vacant federal judgeships in Wisconsin. Curran was one of three attorneys tapped for the commission by Republican U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson, who worked with Democratic Sen. Tammy Baldwin, who named the other three members, to create the commission. “No reservations,” Curran said about accepting the invitation from Johnson. “I’ve done it before, so I know the drill.” The commission is charged with naming candidates for the U.S. District Court for the Eastern and Western districts of Wisconsin, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit and federal attorneys for the state’s Eastern and Western districts.
In the News: Blog 04/18/2013
CBS 21: Pennsylvania Senator says personal stories show the harm of big government
How big is too big? It’s a question one U.S. Senator is asking about the very place that employs him, the federal government. The Senator has devoted quite a bit of time and resources to show how some tax-payer funded agencies are costing some Americans nearly everything. “Meet Stephen Athrop and his family.” It’s the story of an Illinois resident who’s been fighting federal regulators for decades, after buying a piece of property, an old dump, which had caused the area major flooding. “Steve obtained the necessary permits,” Senator Ron Johnson of Wisconsin explains. “He then invested $100,000 and converted the dump into a lake.” Steve is also the center of a new video series put together by the office of Wisconsin Senator Ron Johnson. A program he calls victims of government.
In the News: Blog 04/17/2013
Wisconsin Public Radio: Sen. Johnson Responds To Bombing
U.S. Senator Ron Johnson (R-Wisc) told constituents today that the country needs to maintain a strong national defense, when asked about the bombing at the Boston marathon. The Senator's comments come as it remains unclear who carried out the attack and whether they were foreign or domestic. Speaking to constituents via a telephone town hall, Johnson was asked how he felt about the events in Boston. Johnson said it was important to understand that the number of good people in the United States and the world, “vastly outnumber the evildoers.” “But it's up to us good people to remain vigilant, and that's what we have to do. We need to make sure that from a standpoint of national security, that it remains a high priority.”