A year ago, Oshkosh Defense announced they were awarded a multi-billion dollar contract to build 165,000 "next generation" delivery vehicles for the United States Postal Service. Oshkosh Defense, which is based in Ron Johnson's hometown of Oshkosh, Wisconsin, also said that they were planning on doing the design and development work in Wisconsin but would actually build the vehicles in South Carolina.
That means the company would be sending 1,000 jobs out of state, depriving Wisconsin a big shot of economic development and denying all those family-supporting jobs to Wisconsinites. While all the other elected officials from Wisconsin - on the state and federal levels - have been putting pressure on the company to also build the vehicles here, Ron Johnson said that he would not seek to keep those jobs in his hometown (emphasis mine):
Republican U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson said Saturday he won't try to persuade a Wisconsin manufacturer to place more than 1,000 new jobs in his hometown.
"It's not like we don't have enough jobs here in Wisconsin. The biggest problem we have in Wisconsin right now is employers not being able to find enough workers," Johnson said about Oshkosh Corp.'s plans to locate the jobs in South Carolina.
How in the world RoJo thinks that this is a winning campaign strategy is indecipherable. Most politicians want to have bragging rights about some great economic development. Hell, RoJo is no different. Remember back a few years ago when he managed to take part in the grandstanding over Foxconn, which still hasn't produced anywhere near the promised results.
And lest we forget, there isn't a worker shortage. There is, however, a real shortage of decent employers.
But wait, there's more! There's always more.
RoJo's next comment is enough to burn almost anyone's toast:
"I wouldn't insert myself to demand that anything be manufactured here using federal funds in Wisconsin," Johnson told reporters after appearing at a "Parent Empowerment Rally" in Washington County. "Obviously, I'm supportive of it. But in the end, I think when using federal tax dollars, you want to spend those in the most efficient way and if it's more efficient, more effective to spend those in other states, I don't have a real problem with that."
RoJo didn't seem so concerned about the efficient use of taxpayers dollars when it comes to his own personal benefit, as I wrote years ago:
RoJo apparently learned his hatred of government when he got a low-interest government loan of $2.5 million. (Maybe he got upset when he had to pay it back.) The poor suffering man also had to endure getting a railroad line built up to his factory, thanks to a HUD grant.
And showing that he is a typical Republican hypocrite, RoJo has some of his employees on the state-subsidized BadgerCare. Yet other employees are actually prison inmates who work for serf wages and have health care provided by the state.
Yes, Rojo has really suffered at the hands of the government.
And let's not even go into how inefficient RoJo's sham vaccine hearings are, much less his spreading of The Big Lie and obstructing justice are costing us.
