A few months ago Ron Johnson did an event at the hoity-toity Madison Club in Madison. What made the news that day was that Ron Johnson referred to free trade agreements, which have costs Wisconsin 165,000 jobs, as a "great success" and that the job losses were simply a byproduct of "creative-destruction."
However a newly discovered video that someone has posted on Vimeo shows that, at the same event, Johnson also made some other jaw-droppers.
WisPolitics Lunch with Ron Johnson, Candidate for US Senate from Jim Zellmer on Vimeo.
First he says that the millions he is spending to buy Feingolds Senate Seat, is literally an investment:
Questioner: On top of that, you're going to invest 10 million dollars in the race... well.... I don't if 'invest' is the right word, but do your neighbors think you're crazy or what?
Johnson: I think 'invest' is the right word and I think that's a valid question-- six months ago I would have thought I was crazy...
Then, moments later, he says that deficit spending is OK if its spent on tax cuts for the wealthy:
Questioner: OK, you didn't like the stimulus plan... what would be your altnerative
Johnson: No, no I'm absolutely opposed to that...
Questioner: What's your alternative for helping the economy?
Johnson: As someone that's been in business for 31 years, I recognize where jobs are created and that's the private sector.... the solution would have been, in an emergency situation, I'm not totally opposed to some deficit spending if it had been prioritized at real prioritized infrastructure projects and targeted tax cuts that would actually create demand for products and actually puts money in the pockets of business people so they could invest in plant equipment and actually hire people.
Then, later, he's asked about the economy in his hometown of Oshkosh and Johnson says:
We've had phenominal success with Oshkosh Corporation responding to a need of our U.S. Military in terms of secure trucks and they've responded to that with, what I would say, is an engineering marvel as well as a managerial marvel to get those contracts, so I would say in Oshkosh we're doing pretty well.
In other words, Johnson is saying that the Oshkosh has been weathering the recent economic recession largely through help of... government spending in the form of a big defense contract for a local defense contractor.
But, even with the help of the big defense contract for the Oshkosh Corporation, people in the Oshkosh area are still struggling (largely because of 'creative destruction' jobs lost to cheap overseas labor) and it was ridiculous for Johnson to say they're "doing pretty well."
All in all, though, the main thing this video shows is the unbelievable duplicity of Johnson's campaign. This is the same campaigh that had an ad up for weeks calling deficit spending "intergenerational theft."
But, I guess "intergenerational theft" is ok if the money "goes in the pockets of business people."