Ron Johnson at Milwaukee Rotary: We Must Grow our Economy and Defeat ISIS

Ron Johnson delivered remarks and was interviewed by WisconsinEye’s Steve Walters yesterday at the Rotary Club of Milwaukee where he discussed bringing a problem-solver’s approach to the dysfunction in Washington, the importance of economic growth, and the need to defeat Islamic terrorism.

See excerpts of Ron’s remarks below:

On finding common ground to solve problems: “By focusing on areas of agreement. … And then working in a bipartisan fashion to find agreement on solutions that actually solve the problem, it’s amazing what you can accomplish. … Identifying a problem to make government a little more efficient, a little more effective, a little more accountable. We’ve actually out of my committee reported 83 pieces of legislation, 26 have already been signed into law. That’s called getting real results using a business person’s, an outsider’s approach to try to find an agreement to solving problems.”

On economic growth being the key to greater security: “If there is one word that could describe what’s on Wisconsinites’ minds … it’s the word ‘security.’ But it’s not just national and homeland security. It’s job security, it’s income security, it’s retirement security, it’s health care security. People are concerned. The number one component for all these problems … is economic growth. … As a business guy, as a manufacturer, someone that actually does root cause analysis, that knows how to solve problems, there you go, there is a solution. We’ve got to grow our economy.”

On the growing threat of ISIS and the need to defeat Islamic terrorism: “We talk about lone wolves, now they’re talking about wolf packs. That’s what we saw in Brussels. That’s what we saw in Istanbul. … And it’s not only just inspired, now it’s directed. We think this is going away? It’s obviously not going away. So are we going to finally once and for all, start with the first objective – take out ISIS. … We’ve got to deny them that territory, we’ve got to end that caliphate. Because every day that goes by where they exist, they’re going to be perceived as winners, they’re going to continue to inspire, they’re going to continue to recruit. You got to take out that tumor, you got to take out that beehive. … You have to remain committed as a civilized world to isolating and finding Islamic terror wherever it resides.”