Senator Ron Johnson is a dangerous moron
Something you may have picked up on during the decade-plus that he’s been in office is that Senator Ron Johnson is a dangerous moron. Early in his career, he claimed in an interview that members of ISIS could be purposely infecting themselves with Ebola and then coming to the United States to spread it. The following year, he introduced legislation “directing the federal government to prepare to protect critical infrastructure against threats of electromagnetic pulse…and geomagnetic disturbances,” a favorite conspiracy theory of the far right. On climate change, he’s said the scientific consensus is “bullshit,” that experts who attribute the crisis to manmade causes are “crazy,” that excess carbon dioxide is good for the environment, and that Greenland got its name because it was originally green. He is a leading purveyor of misinformation about the 2020 election and COVID-19, claiming, in the case of the former, that the deadly insurrection was largely a “peaceful protest.” On the latter, he pushed ivermectin—a horse dewormer—as a treatment, falsely insisted the vaccines were dangerous, and said mouthwash could kill the virus. So when Johnson opened his mouth this week to discuss an idea he’s apparently been knocking around re: government assistance and childcare, it wasn’t exactly surprising that the words that came out were those of a big-time idiot.
In a telephone town hall with constituents on Tuesday, the Wisconsin lawmaker proposed having mothers receiving public assistance work at day care centers where their children go. “When you have mothers on different kinds of public assistance, to me, an elegant solution would be, why don’t we have them help staff child care for other mothers?” Johnson said, modestly deeming his idea an “imaginative solution” to the current staffing shortages at childcare facilities. (It’s not clear if Johnson would want to make this a requirement to receive assistance, but given that Republicans are famously anti-“handouts” and the party of “get a job,” it wouldn’t be out of character if he did.) The senator was reportedly responding to the childcare subsidy included in President Joe Biden’s Build Back Better proposal, which Democrats support because it could actually help people. In January, Johnson attacked the subsidy (and parents who are not millionaires like himself), saying during a TV interview that he was against making childcare more affordable because “people decide to have families and become parents; that’s something they need to consider when they make that choice. I’ve never really felt it was society’s responsibility to take care of other people’s children.” (Incidentally, Johnson opposes abortion rights and last year tried to make performing the procedure after 20 weeks a criminal offense.)
But apparently the senator has given it some more thought and decided the subsidies might be okay with him if the women receiving them go to work. There are just a few problems with his proposal, one of them being that it’s illegal in the state of Wisconsin, according to the Associated Press: Wisconsin law prohibits state subsidy payments from going to a certified childcare provider where an employee’s child receives care. The law restricting eligible recipients of childcare subsidies was enacted after the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel in 2009 discovered day care providers collecting subsidies while watching other each other’s children.
There’s also the matter of Johnson’s “imaginative solution” being wildly sexist, as he apparently believes that childcare is strictly the domain of mothers. Plus, as Wisconsin state senator Kelda Roys pointed out on Twitter, Johnson apparently thinks you can just plunk any random female into the job. “This is absolute trash,” she wrote. “Early childhood education is incredibly demanding, important, high-skill work. Everyone’s kids deserve care from well paid, trained professionals - including parents on assistance.” In response to the proposal, Sarah Godlewski, who is running for Senate, said: “We have a full-blown childcare crisis and a record number of moms getting knocked out of the workforce. There are commonsense solutions to these problems, but Ron Johnson’s ‘imaginative’ idea would punish moms and drag us back to the 1950s. I have news for this guy: We’re not going back.” Democratic Party of Wisconsin spokesperson Philip Shulman had a similar take, noting: “Ron Johnson couldn’t care less about Wisconsin parents and children. Instead of offering meaningful solutions that would lower costs, he’s pushing a self-serving agenda that harms Wisconsin families.”
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2022/03/ron-johnson-mothers-childcare
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