When we last left the great state of Wisconsin, the campaign of GOP Senate candidate Ron Johnson was being forced to answer for the revelation that Mr. No Big Government had sought and received a government-backed loan during the early days of his business career.
The campaign gave the dismissive response that "An industrial revenue bond is neither special treatment nor a government payment or subsidy."
Let's see them try to explain how a a government payment is not a government payment:
A railroad line to Senate candidate Ron Johnson's plastics factory was built with the assistance of a federal grant.
According to documents from the Oshkosh city clerk's office, an Urban Development Action Grant in the amount of $75,000 was used to build a rail spur to Pacur, a plastics manufacturing company owned by Johnson.
Team Johnson immediately blasted the story, saying that "we have highways, railroads, post offices, water and electrical services among other public services that businesses rely on each day."
This, in short, is an asinine assertion. All these infrastructure components cited by the Johnson campaign exist because their construction is for the public good, which includes businesses but also means the citizenry at-large. This grant was to give a dedicated rail line for one plastics company.
The public did not benefit from its construction, Pacur did. Their conflation of a dedicated rail spur to water and electrical infrastructure is telling. It is pretty evident from their analogy that their view is that government can only be as large as it needs to be to cater to the whims of corporate America.
Everything else is "big government."
