Ron Johnson’s Beltway Blunder: The “Single Moms” Edition

MADISON — Another week, another out of touch idea from Senator Ron Johnson. This week Johnson took a break from fundraising with a billionaire in Wyoming to offer his insight on how to combat poverty. Instead, the only solution he had was downright offensive.

In an interview with WIZM, Senator Johnson was asked what his solution was to help low-income communities and single mothers specifically. His solution? Have single mothers work at their child’s day care center. Problem solved!

Wisconsin women were rightly offended, but not surprised, by Johnson’s proposal. After all, Senator Johnson has a long record of failure when it come to fighting for women. He voted five times against legislation that would help women fight for equal pay for equal work and he voted twice against the violence against women’s act.

“Senator Johnson continues to push the same tired, out-of-touch and extreme agenda because he has no real ideas about how to help improve the economic fortunes of single mothers. It’s just another reminder that Senator Johnson has outsourced his economic agenda to the ultra-right and special interests who have funded his campaign,” said Harry Hartfield, spokesman for the Democratic Party of Wisconsin.

Blunder
INTERVIEWER: Wisconsin Senator Ron Johnson joining us this morning. Sir, again it sounds like this is, this works for a certain segment of the population, able-bodied adults who are able to work, [00:02:00.16] obviously the efforts to fight poverty probably also need to deal with the children living in poverty, single mothers who have those children who maybe can’t work as much because they’re taking care of their children. How does this relate to all this?

SENATOR JOHNSON: Well, again, each one of these problems is individual. You know, certainly what I’ve always said, and I’ve talked to people about this, is let single moms actually work in day care and support each other.

NOTE: This press release was submitted to Urban Milwaukee and was not written by an Urban Milwaukee writer. It has not been verified for its accuracy or completeness.