Senator Johnson campaigned to reduce the debt, but five years inside the beltway later, and he’s more concerned with listening to Washington insiders than tackling the budget. He and his conservative colleagues in the Senate missed the April 15th deadline to pass a budget because they refused to even vote on one. Johnson went as far as to say he didn’t, “really see what a budget would do for us [the Republican Party].”
Four years ago Senator Johnson was singing a very different song. In 2012, he said, “It is imperative that we get our federal budget under control. And the first step, the minimum thing that Congress should do, is follow the law that it passed to put discipline on itself and pass a budget.”
Johnson has talked a lot about cutting the debt, but he hasn’t put forth any solutions of his own. Instead he’s lined up behind ultra-conservative Washington Republicans like Mitch McConnell who want to balance the budget on the backs of the middle class. The result has been that the debt continues to grow as Senator Johnson refuses to consider bi-partisan solutions. 
“It’s not clear why Ron Johnson spends so much time in Washington D.C. since he isn’t doing what he himself described as his “minimum” responsibility. He should follow his own advice, instead of Mitch McConnell’s, and pass a budget. After all, it’s the ‘minimum thing that Congress should do.” said Brandon Weathersby, spokesman for the Democratic Party of Wisconsin.
