CQ: For the Record Goes Against the Grain

By Kerry Young

Senate appropriators have only just begun to mark up their fiscal 2013 spending bills, but Wisconsin Republican Ron Johnson has made it clear he’s not buying into the clubby traditions of the Appropriations Committee.

Johnson, a plastics company owner who had not held elective office before winning his Senate seat in 2010, is sticking with the tea party-backed ideology that helped him win. That now includes demanding roll call committee votes instead of the voice votes that have expedited work in years past. The tactic forces colleagues to take positions on spending details they might just as soon not have on the record.

“We should actually be voting on these things,” Johnson said at one point.

That means there probably will be at least four roll call votes at the subcommittee level this year, compared with only three such votes in the eight years before Johnson joined the panel.

Johnson also wants appropriations to adopt some practices from its House counterpart, such as publicly releasing the text of spending bills 24 hours before a markup.

Some conservative groups have praised Johnson’s approach, but GOP colleagues, including Susan Collins of Maine, have taken exception to it. “I do not want people to have the impression that somehow this has been business as usual,” she said at a markup a week ago. “Every one of our subcommittees has had to make deep painful cuts, set priorities and make difficult choices.”

Op-Ed: Obama, Democrats not serious about passing budget

By Senator Ron Johnson

Editor’s note: U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wisconsin, is a member of the Senate Budget Committee.

The U.S. government is the largest financial entity in the world. Nothing else comes close.

On Sunday, April 29, it will be exactly three years since the U.S. Senate passed a budget.

If you own or work for a small business that has a loan from a bank, I’m quite sure your business has a budget — and a rather detailed budget at that. Every year around tax time, many American families sit down to fill out tax forms, estimate their income, and set spending priorities for the upcoming year. It’s the responsible thing to do.

And yet, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid appears to believe it is not necessary for the Senate to fulfill its legal responsibility by debating and passing a budget to account for $3.8 trillion in federal spending next fiscal year, $15.6 trillion of debt and, according to figures produced by the Senate Budget Committee Republican staff, more than $65 trillion in additional unfunded liabilities.

To provide some perspective to these incomprehensible numbers, the total net private asset base — that is, the net value of all household assets, small business assets, and large business assets — of the United States is $82 trillion, according to figures from the Federal Reserve Flow of Funds Account from March 8, 2012.

Even worse, President Barack Obama and his administration seem to view budgeting as just one more political maneuver. His efforts have been so completely unserious that the President’s 2012 budget was rejected by a vote of 97-0 in the Senate. And three weeks ago, when Rep. Mick Mulvaney, R-South Carolina, sponsored a budget proposal based on Obama’s 2013 budget plan, it lost in the House by a vote of 414-0.

That’s right, not a single member of Congress cast a vote in favor of Obama’s last two budgets. That is a stunning repudiation of his leadership. What it really represents is a total abdication of leadership.

Democrats in the Senate have all the votes they need to pass a real budget and show the American people their plan for today and the future. But they refuse, because they don’t want to be held accountable. They would rather cut backroom deals that hide the details of their plans, and then take political pot shots at Republicans who have had the courage to produce and vote for a serious budget.

Democrats claim that last year’s Budget Control Act is an adequate substitute for a real budget because it “deems” spending caps. Obviously, it is not. It is only half the equation. It includes no plan for saving Social Security or Medicare, for reforming taxes, or for ever living within our means. But it does prove that Washington is certainly good at making sure spending continues.

Business owners and consumers all over America are watching Washington, shaking their heads in disgust, and holding on to their wallets. These are the people we need to get our economy moving again, but these are the very people that are under assault by Obama and his policies.

The Obama administration’s agencies are regulating business to death, limiting the use of America’s domestic energy resources, threatening to punish success by increasing tax burdens, and providing no credible plan for reining in our debt and deficit. As self-defeating as all of these policies have been, not having a credible long-term budget plan might prove to be the most harmful.

For the 30 years from 1970 through 1999, the average borrowing cost of the U.S. government was 5.3%, according to an analysis made by my staff of figures from the Office of Management and Budget. During that period, the ratio of our debt to our Gross Domestic Product (GDP) averaged 47% and never exceeded 67%. We were a far more creditworthy nation back then than we are today.

Now our debt-to-GDP ratio exceeds 100%, and over the last three years, America’s borrowing cost has been kept at an artificially low rate of 1.5%. How long can that last? Nobody knows.

What we do know is that if our borrowing costs were to revert to the 1970-through-1999 average of 5.3%, America’s annual interest expense would increase by $600 billion — an amount that equals 50% of discretionary spending.

Out of our $3.8 trillion annual budget, only $1.3 trillion is discretionary spending subject to appropriation and some level of control. Everything else, roughly $2.5 trillion, is mandatory and entitlement spending that is on automatic pilot — with no requirement to ensure financial solvency of these programs.

This is unsustainable. Increased interest expense resulting from higher rates, the true cost of Obamacare, and reduced revenues from slower economic growth caused by uncertainty and lack of confidence, all significantly raise the risk of dramatically higher debt and deficits. Employer surveys by McKinsey, as well as analysis by former Congressional Budget Office Director Holtz-Eakin, show that far more Americans will lose employer-provided care than CBO estimates. Additionally, Congress is unlikely to implement the hundreds of billions in Medicare cuts that are called for in the president’s health care law

It is past time for Obama, and his allies in Congress, to show the American people a credible plan to address our looming financial crisis. It is time for Senate Democrats to pass a budget.

Published on CNN.com

[PHOTOS] Behind the Scenes: Election Day in Wisconsin

.@RepPaulRyan @SenRonJohnson and Rep Sensenbrenner with @MittRomney backstage. twitter.com/RyanGOP/status…

— Ryan Williams (@RyanGOP) April 4, 2012

Pic: Gov with @SenRonJohnson awaiting WI results #Mitt2012 twitter.com/dgjackson/stat…

— Mitt’s Body Man(@dgjackson) April 4, 2012

Cheesehead spotted at @MittRomney victory party in Milwaukee. #mitt2012 twitter.com/RyanGOP/status…

— Ryan Williams (@RyanGOP) April 4, 2012

Sen. Ron Johnson: Green light for Obamacare would remove Americans’ ‘last shred of freedom’

In an interview with The Daily Caller, Senator Ron Johnson warned of dire threats to individual liberty if the Supreme Court were to confirm the constitutionality of president Obama’s individual health care mandate, which requires all Americans to purchase health insurance or a pay a fine.

“Can the federal government actually force Americans to buy a product?” Johnson asked, incredulous, at a “Hands Off My Health Care” rally on Capitol Hill. ”That would be a sea change in constitutional law. … The Commerce Clause [in the U.S. Constitution] has been expanded far beyond anything the founders ever envisioned anyway but this is our, kind of, last shred of freedom.”

“This really is a very pivotal moment for America and we just have to hope and pray the Supreme Court does the right thing and rules this thing unconstitutional.”

The Wisconsin Republican, who endorsed former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney for president on Sunday, said this is a “very simple” case.

“Can the federal government force you to buy a product? Can they really remove that … last shred of freedom?” he asked.

Johnson compared the case to the Supreme Court’s Wickard v. Filburn decision, which he said the court should overturn.

“It told an Ohio farmer that he could not grow enough wheat for his own consumption. … Most people don’t realize how simple that court case was and how profound it was,” he said. “It has resulted in all these others encroachments on our liberty.”

TheDC also asked Johnson about the relationship between the individual mandate and President Obama’s requirement that health insurance companies must issue policies to Americans with pre-existing medical conditions.

“Of course, that thing couldn’t remain part of the bill because one is predicated on the other. I mean, you really simply can’t have pre-existing conditions — you know, a guaranteed issue — without a mandate to purchase insurance,” he said.

“I mean, people realize that but what you do is utilize high-risk pools. Most states have them. They work phenomenally well: They subsidize care, the insurance rates are subsidized for people that get denied coverage by insurance carriers, and they get put in the high-risk pools.”

“The problem conservatives always have,” Johnson warned, “is we don’t have sound-bite arguments. … For example, the Democrats say, ‘We’re going to protect your Social Security. We’re going to protect your Medicare.’ And my response to that is, ‘with what?’”

“I mean, we’re bankrupting this nation.”

Published on The Daily Caller.

NRO: The Ron Johnson Factor

Wisconsin’s tea-party senator backs Mitt Romney.
By Robert Costa

In late March, Mitt Romney met with a handful of Republican senators in Senator Jim DeMint’s Capitol Hill office. DeMint, a South Carolina conservative, made clear to the group that he would remain unaligned during the presidential primary. But he wanted to give his colleagues, especially the freshmen, a chance to converse with the GOP front-runner.

One of those first-term members, Senator Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, came away impressed. A successful and mild-mannered former businessman, Johnson appreciated Romney’s focus on economic growth and attention to the ballooning federal debt, which has become the senator’s bailiwick. “We were able to ask some pretty pointed questions,” he tells National Review Online. “That gave me a great deal of confidence that [Romney] fully understands the problem.”

“He’s got a background in finance and we’re dealing with huge budget deficits,” Johnson says. “It’s important that we have somebody in the White House who understands the problem, who acknowledges the problem, and who will solve the problem. That’s what’s missing.”

Johnson’s eleventh-hour endorsement, which he announced Sunday on NBC’s Meet the Press, is the latest boost for Romney, who currently leads the polls in Wisconsin. As Badger State Republicans vote today, Johnson’s support will almost certainly be a factor, due to his popularity with tea-party activists — his political base — and with the state’s business leaders.

Another prominent Wisconsin Republican, Representative Paul Ryan, the House Budget Committee chairman, recently endorsed Romney. But it’s Johnson’s nod that intrigues political observers because his support, though hardly front-page news in most quarters, was unexpected. For the most part, the 56-year-old senator had been mum for months, sending few public signals.

Johnson, who entered politics after gaining notice as a speaker at tea-party rallies, is confident that Romney will be a capable nominee. But another reason for his endorsement, he says, is his growing concern that the primary is distracting the party from its main target, President Obama.

“[Romney] is likely the only candidate who can win enough delegates to win the nomination before the convention,” Johnson says. “The other candidates can only be spoilers and hope for chaos. Every fiscal conservative has to realize that the number one priority is to defeat Obama, to make him a one-term president.” A protracted primary, Johnson concludes, will “diminish our chances.”

Looking ahead, Johnson hopes that Republicans eventually embrace Romney’s business background. In his 2010 race against Senator Russ Feingold, an incumbent Democrat, Johnson used his years as the executive of a plastics company to bolster his cause. “We need more people in government that have had real experience in the private sector — people who respect it,” he says.

Instead of worrying about Democrats’ demonizing wealth, Johnson says, Republicans should tout Romney’s work at Bain Capital as one of his top assets.

“I’d much rather have a successful individual running our country than someone who has failed in life,” Johnson says. “If being successful in the business world is a disqualification for the presidency, then we’ve come to a very bad spot in this country. Without rubbing it in, you should be proud of having a successful life, of understanding how the free-market system works.”

Over the weekend, Johnson says, after he expressed his admiration for Romney’s “seriousness of purpose” to party leaders, he was promptly asked by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell to coordinate the GOP’s congressional message with the presidential nominee. It’s a role that he will fulfill with relish during the general-election campaign, he says.

“We’ve got to be firing on all cylinders with a coordinated agenda,” Johnson says. “My message to the governor when I saw him on Sunday was, ‘help us help you.’ That’s what it’s going to take.” Other recent Romney endorsers, he says, such as Senators Mike Lee of Utah and Marco Rubio of Florida, are eager to help the front-runner connect with conservatives.

But for now, Johnson says, he is getting ready to watch the returns. He expects Romney to sweep the “ring counties” outside Milwaukee — Ozaukee, Washington, and Waukesha. Those are all important Republican hotbeds. Santorum may do well in sporadic rural areas, he adds, but on the whole, he thinks strong totals in the suburbs can help Romney win big statewide.

Johnson acknowledges that he doesn’t have operatives to offer Romney’s sprawling Wisconsin campaign, but he still carries significant weight with conservative activists, who two years ago lifted Johnson from obscurity during a contested party convention. In a state where Republicans constantly battle for power, he says, endorsements matter, so he wanted to weigh in.

“Wisconsin has been the epicenter of American politics for the past 14 months,” Johnson observes, referencing Republican governor Scott Walker’s efforts to repair the state’s long-term fiscal situation by curbing the power of public-sector unions. “We can also lead the nomination process by giving Romney a big victory,” he says. “It’d be a sign that Republicans recognize the reality, and that we’re ready to turn our attention back to the president.”

— Robert Costa is a political reporter for National Review.

Published on National Review Online.

The Hill: Sen. Johnson calls savings under healthcare reform ‘an utter fiction’

By Justin Sink – 04/02/12

Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) sparred with White House health policy adviser Zeke Emanuel over the costs of the president’s signature healthcare reform measure during a segment on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” Monday, saying it was “an utter fiction that this was going to reduce the deficit.”

“They gamed the CBO numbers. CBO was forced to score what the administration, what Congress gives them,” Johnson said of a Congressional Budget Office projection that showed that increased insurance coverage would end up saving the government money.

Johnson, who announced his endorsement of Mitt Romney on Monday, dismissed those projections, saying they relied on “phantom savings” in programs like Medicare.

“Let’s face it, the American people realize you can’t cover 25 million more people without adding a dime more to the deficit. The number of broken promises President Obama made with his healthcare law are legion,” the Wisconsin lawmaker said.

Emanuel — brother of former White House Chief of Staff and current Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel — said it was likely the CBO was actually underestimating the potential savings under the plan. He noted that premiums in Massachusetts — where a similar plan was instituted under then-Gov. Mitt Romney — were down 40 percent while health outcomes were better.

“One simple question: Senator, what’s you alternative?” Emanuel asked Johnson over his objection to the legislation.

But the Republican senator said the president’s plan removed “free market discipline” from healthcare.

“Do you want government control over the system? Or do you really want the private sector, you know, bringing the free market back into this — that’s been the problem, quite honestly,” Johnson said. “As we separate the consumer and the product from the payment and the product, we’ve taken the free market discipline out of healthcare.”

The Supreme Court voted Friday on the constitutionality of the healthcare reform legislation’s individual mandate after three days of oral arguments before the higher court earlier in the week, although it is not expected to announce its findings until later this summer.