‘I Don’t Think It’s Controversial’: Johnson on Opposing Childcare Help

The two-term Republican senator has historically opposed increasing government assistance for working-class families.

US Sen. Ron Johnson on Friday doubled down on comments he made earlier in the week opposing government assistance for child care.

“I don’t think it’s controversial to believe that it’s parents’ primary responsibility to raise their children, not somebody else’s,” Johnson told reporters Friday in a video published by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

Johnson made the remark when asked about blowback to an interview with WKBT during which he said it’s not “society’s responsibility to take care of other people’s children” in response to a question about whether he supports the federal government helping connect families to child care.

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The two-term Republican senator, who is up for re-election in November, has a history of opposing government assistance for working-class families. 

Last March, he single-handedly delayed passage of the American Rescue Plan, forcing the entire 628-page bill—which extended increased unemployment insurance payments, delivered $1,400 checks to most people, put money behind rental assistance, and lowered healthcare costs for plans purchased through the Affordable Care Act’s insurance marketplace—to be read aloud in the Senate.

Meanwhile, Johnson has supported tax breaks for the wealthy. Last year, nonprofit investigative journalism outlet ProPublica exposed how Johnson refused to vote for former President Donald Trump’s massive 2017 tax cut bill until lawmakers made a change to the legislation that delivered hundreds of millions of tax savings to two of Johnson’s wealthiest donors.