President Obama’s “job-killing” policies have “taken America 180 degrees in the wrong direction,” Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., opined in the Washington Times on Tuesday. Johnson, a former CEO of a mid-sized manufacturing business, slammed the Obama administration's efforts to revive the economy and outlined his proposals to restore consumer confidence.
“I’m confident the president’s umpteenth attempt at a jobs program will be nothing more than a slight variation on already-tried-and-failed themes. Why would we expect anything different or think he has any personal knowledge on how to create jobs?” Johnson wrote.
Johnson blamed economic stimulus, health care reform, the Dodd-Frank bill, and an “explosion” of regulations for unsettling markets, businesses, and consumers. He accused the president of being “blinded by ideology” and noted that few in the administration have private-sector experience.
Johnson’s proposals include: repealing Dodd-Frank and the Affordable Care Act, streamlining the tax code, creating a "credible" plan to control spending, increasing domestic energy production and imposing a moratorium on new regulations and civil-service hiring. Both the House and Senate should have permanent ‘sunset’ committees focused on eliminating laws and regulations, Johnson wrote.
Johnson also said he would work with the House to improve the budgeting process. He recommended a shift to ‘zero-based’ budgeting and a biennial budget process that authorizes spending in the first year and conducts spending oversight in the second. He also recommended that all spending be authorized “regularly” by Congress, and that Congress and the administration should be required to make entitlement programs structurally solvent “for 75 years by fiscal 2014.”
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