Youngstown Biz Journal: Johnson Vows No Debt Vote Without Cuts

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By George Nelson

U.S. Rep. Bill Johnson vowed Tuesday that he would not vote for a bill to increase the nation's debt ceiling if that legislation did not include "trillions" of dollars in spending cuts or call for a balanced budget amendment.

"We've got to draw a line in the sand and we've got to send a signal to the White House and to the Senate that we are not going to continue this out-of-control spending," Johnson, R-6 Ohio, told an audience of nearly 70 at a Thursday breakfast meeting of the Youngstown/Warren Regional Chamber's governmental affairs committee.

"For me to even consider a vote to raise the debt limit it has to include certain things," Johnson said. Those include "spending cuts in the trillions," tax reform "so that you get to keep more of your hard-earned money," and a balanced-budget amendment "to force the federal government to live within its means," he remarked.

Technically, the United States on Monday reached its debt ceiling -- the limit of what it is permitted by law to borrow -- but Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner has said he can delay that through a series of maneuvers that will allow the county to continue through early August without defaulting on its obligations.

Johnson, who took office in January after defeating incumbent Rep. Charlie Wilson, discussed his early months as a member of the U.S. House of Representatives, which switched to Republican control as a result of the GOP surge. His focus since going to Washington has been to do exactly what he promised when he was elected: cut spending, create jobs, reduce the size of the federal government "and repeal the massive takeover of our health-care system and replace it with real reforms in health care that are not going to bankrupt or mortgage future generations," he said. "Every vote that I have taken thus far has moved us down the road on these goals," he remarked.

Whenever he is presented with legislation, Johnson said he asks two simple questions: How much is it going to cost and who is going to pay for it. "And if I don't get some answers that indicate to me that we're going to cut spending and stop this building of this massive debt that's mortgaging the future of our children and our grandchildren, my vote is no and I've been very consistent with that," he said. He also opposes tax increases as "the right way to get there."

The 2011 budget bill, which contained $39 billion in spending cuts, was "the first down payment on cutting that spending," he said. The 2012 budget, passed by the House, builds on that down payment and has a "very positive outlook," with $6.2 trillion in spending cuts and what he characterized as reforms for programs like Medicare which he contends "preserve and strengthen" them but are being mischaracterized by the media.

"What you hear on the news is that this 2012 spending bill is going to send Grandma and Grandpa to the old folks home and we're going to take food out of their mouths, cut their Medicare and all that. None of that is true," Johnson said. "This bill does not cut Medicare for current seniors and those within 10 years of retirement, but it does strengthen and preserve those programs so that our children and our grandchildren have something to look forward to."

He also said, as a member of the House Natural Resources Committee, he is working to rein in regulatory agencies "because behind every government agency is a hidden tax."

On energy, Johnson said President Obama could lower gas prices, now hovering around $4 per gallon, by declaring that America is drawing "a line in the sand" and setting a goal of becoming "energy secure" over the next decade by going after oil in the shallow and deep waters off the Gulf Coast, in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and on western federal lands, pursuing nuclear and alternative sources of energy, and exploiting the country's coal and natural gas deposits, particularly natural gas in the Marcellus and Utica shale deposits. That would capture the attention of both overseas oil suppliers and the big oil companies.

Most experts believe the Marcellus and Utica deposits represent the largest natural gas deposits in the world, Johnsons said. In 10 or 15 years, "we could be sitting in the midst of the Saudi Arabia of natural gas," he remarked.

Johnson's Democratic colleague, U.S. Rep. Tim Ryan in the neighboring 17th District, said he supports a "comprehensive, long-term approach" to reducing the nation's deficits and pointed out during a phone interview Tuesday that he was one of only two Democrats who voted in committee in favor of the Simpson-Bowles commission debt-reduction recommendations. However, he cautioned, "You just don't play around with the full faith and credit of the United States, when you're dealing with our ability to borrow money in the financial market. I just think that's something that you don't play chicken with."

Ryan, how in his fifth term in the House, also said he doesn't believe in drilling for oil in federal and state parks, or in the ANWR preserve. While he supports off shore drilling, "The reality is the United States just doesn't have the amount of oil that can satisfy our own consumption," Ryan said. Any oil drilled here is going to go into the global market, where it will have a "minimal impact" on prices.

"It's not a solution. It's not even a Band-Aid," he remarked. The United States only has 2% to 3% of the world's oil yet uses 25%. Instead, the focus should be on developing a comprehensive energy policy that recognizes it is getting both increasingly more difficult and expensive to find oil, and instead focus on converting to natural gas, developing alternatives such as wind and solar power, and working on new technologies to come up with "the next best thing" that will help reduce U.S. dependence on foreign oil. He also opposes conservatives' efforts to reduce regulatory oversight of the commodities markets and oil drilling, particularly in the wake of last year's BP oil spill.

"It's the wrong approach and we're letting the world pass us by with investments into renewables," he said. "We're ceding the next generation of jobs and investment to China and Germany while we sit here and pretend we have enough oil. We're living in a fantasyland."

Ryan also claims Republicans' Medicare proposal will cost seniors $12,000 in the future per year. There are ways to save money, through means testing, for example, he said, and health-care reform will help address health-care costs. "Now is a good time for all of us to remember why there is Medicare in the first place," he said. "It's not a moneymaker."

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