ICYMI: “Ron Johnson’s backroom dealing shows who he’s working for. It’s not you.” [Milwaukee Journal Sentinel Editorial]

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT:

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel (Editorial): Nobody’s senator but theirs: Ron Johnson’s backroom dealing shows who he’s working for. It’s not you.
By the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel Editorial Board
August 12, 2021

Key Points:

• A blockbuster scoop by ProPublica on Wednesday makes crystal clear who Ron Johnson represents: He is the senator for the ultra-wealthy.

• The exposé details how Wisconsin’s Republican senator ensured that his wealthiest donors made out like bandits in the massive 2017 tax bill that GOP leaders marketed as a “middle-class tax cut.”

• Though he tried to defend himself on Wednesday, Johnson’s secret, closed-door maneuvering on the tax bill is one more reason he’s unfit to represent Wisconsin citizens. The sooner he’s removed from office, the better for our democratic republic.

• Johnson’s deal-making showered eye-popping benefits on his two biggest donors — Hendricks, who owns ABC Supply Co. in Beloit, and the Uihleins, Schlitz Brewing heirs  who own the Uline packaging company in Pleasant Prairie.

• They got quite a return on their investment — Johnson proved to be the best senator money could buy.

• Republicans claimed that the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act — what Trump called his “big, beautiful Christmas present” — would goose economic growth and result in a simpler, fairer system. What it actually did, according to a study by Treasury economists, is hand out most of the tax savings to the richest 1% of Americans.

• These are the people Ron Johnson truly represents and works for — even as he panders to people who are less well-to-do yet continue to believe in Trump and his promises to shake up the status quo and “drain the swamp.”

• Johnson has never made a secret that he supports big business and the wealthy. Still, the audacious nature of the secret deal-making outlined by ProPublica is breathtaking.

• Johnson couldn’t be bothered to support a bipartisan infrastructure investment this week, which aims to repair the nation’s deteriorating roads, bridges and ports; replace lead water pipes in cities like Milwaukee; and bring high-speed Internet to areas of Wisconsin and rural America that badly need it.

• The senator is willing to work hard, and even stand up to his party’s leader, when it comes to doing the bidding of a few extremely rich patrons. When it comes to working for the good of the many more average Wisconsin citizens he represents? Not so much.

• Johnson’s priorities are all wrong — and they’ve been all wrong for this entire term.
  

Read more: ProPublica: Ron Johnson’s efforts on Trump tax cut delivered millions in savings to billionaires who financed his campaigns, IRS records show; Associated Press: Report: Johnson pushed for tax break benefitting megadonors; Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Ron Johnson defends pass-through tax provisions that benefited donors.

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