Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., and Rep. Mark Pocan, D-Madison, spoke to University of Wisconsin students about the federal budget, each speaking of the need for bipartisanship but emphasizing their party’s approach is the right one.
As part of the UW’s Bipartisan Issues Group, Johnson, Pocan and former U.S. Comptroller General David Walker spoke about the need to reform the nation’s budget while keeping key social programs.
Walker, Comeback America Initiative founder, said the nation is in need of major reforms, both fiscally and politically. He expressed his frustrations with both parties for not coming together, despite public recognition that something has to get done.
“We have a leadership deficit,” Walker said. “We have hyper-partisanship and a great ideological divide. … What is going on right now is immoral.”
The majority of the federal budget is on autopilot and is 11.5 times larger than it was a century ago. While he said the nation’s problems are not nearly as severe as Greece, the country is not “exempt from the laws of prudent finance.”
The debt does not have to be paid for completely, he said, although the level of debt should be at about 60 percent of the national income, a number that is currently more than 100 percent.
Johnson, who recently had dinner with President Barack Obama and other Republican senators, said the president agrees programs like Medicare need reform. But he said Obama has to be more outspoken and use his bully pulpit to rally people around the necessary reforms.
“We don’t have your platform,” he said he told the president. “We have really small voices.”
Johnson, an Oshkosh business owner, ran mainly against Obama’s health care law, the Patient Protection and Affordable Health Care Act, and economic performance in 2010.
He said the Senate Democrats’ budget, the first they have passed in four years, does not do enough. He contrasted that with House Republicans’ budget that balances in 10 years while ensuring programs like Medicare remain for future generations.
“[The government] is utterly out of control,” Johnson said. “The solution is to try to limit its size.”
However, Pocan said unemployment and underemployment causes much of the deficit, as many people are no longer paying taxes. He emphasized the solution to the country’s long-term debt problems need to have a mix of spending cuts and revenue raising.
“Simply cutting and slashing right now, as we need to get the economy going, is wrong,” Pocan said.
Pocan called the Republican budget from Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Janesville, an “embarrassment,” as it does not fully outline many of the changes and therefore does not actually balance.
Pocan, who noted his cooperation with Republicans when he was in the state Assembly, said Congress needs more bipartisanship. That is why cockroaches, traffic jams and head lice ranked as more popular than Congress, he said, drawing laughter from the crowd.
Like the other two speakers, Pocan said the high student turnout encouraged him and said similar discussions are needed in Congress, which is why he joined the “Problem Solvers Caucus.”
“You’re doing what we should be doing more of in Washington,” Pocan said.
Colleen Driscoll, a BIG member and UW sophomore studying political science, said she was pleased to hear from all three speakers.
“The debt is a bipartisan issue, so we need both parties to come together because we’re the generation that has to deal with it,” Driscoll said.
