Ron Johnson says he's a businessman, and that businesses, not government, create jobs.
Yes, sir, he's a job creator all right.
Out of work? Can't find a job? Ron Johnson doesn't care. He wants to cut off your unemployment.
Your job went overseas? Johnson says that's just how business works. He calls it creative destruction.
And when his company does create jobs? -- With a quarter million people in Wisconsin out of work, Johnson's company hires prisoners to work for cheap, with no benefits and the government paying their health insurance, the Associated Press reported today:
Republican Senate candidate Ron Johnson, who has campaigned against government subsidies to business, employs up to nine prison inmates at his plastics factories whose health care costs are paid by the state, according to records obtained by The Associated Press.
Public records show that Pacur Inc. and Dynamic Drinkware LLC, two companies run by Johnson, employ up to nine inmates at a time through a state Corrections Department jobs program.
Johnson's companies offer private health insurance to the regular employees at the Oshkosh factories. But Melissa Roberts, an executive assistant with the Corrections Department, said the companies don't have to cover the inmate workers. "The benefit is that they don't have to pay health benefits," she said.
Health industry statistics indicate that companies spend an average of about $10,000 per worker a year for insurance.
Johnson, of course, is running to repeal the health care reform bill and says government shouldn't run health care or subsidize businesses. Johnson's a businessman, all right. And he's giving us the business.