Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) dismissed a student's question about the Republican tax cut bill by mocking poor people.
The Wisconsin Republican spoke Thursday at the Medical College of Wisconsin, where he defended the extension of president Donald Trump's tax cuts when one of the students asked why the GOP bill focused on spending cuts instead of raising revenue to balance the budget.
"I'm a young person, and in your talk you talked a lot about how the deficit represents a transfer of wealth from young to old, and I'm sensitive to that," said student Joseph Hennessey. "Of course, you can't spend money that you don't have. But, of course, there are two ways to reduce the deficit. One is to cut spending and the other is to increase revenue. So I'm wondering why you're only focused on one half of that equation, cutting spending, and not opposing these massive tax cuts that disproportionately go to the wealthiest Americans who really don't need that tax cut and why we're looking at cutting things like Medicaid and funding for critical scientific research on the back of that."
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The senator told the student that his suggestion was unrealistic.
"I recognize reality and I'm all for additional revenue through economic growth, and I also realize that over the last 50, 60 years, no matter what the top marginal tax rate, no matter how much we're trying to punish success, it doesn't work," Johnson said. "We've had 90, 70, you know, 50, 36, 28 percent top marginal tax rate, but over all those years, it's pretty much a flat curve in terms of how much revenue the federal government can extract from the economy. It's about 17.3 percent."
Johnson said the tax code was too complicated already, and he argued that no tax rate would ever offset current spending levels.
"You have to reduce that structural deficit and, again, you continue to punish success you get less of it," Johnson said. "You might feel good – 'Yeah, we're really getting those rich guys.' It's those rich guys that invest their capital, build the business, create the types of jobs and opportunity. You can deny that fact, but again, now you're really denying reality."
Hennessey registered his disagreement and returned to his seat to allow for someone else to ask another question, and the senator taunted him as he walked away.
"By the way, I never met a poor person that created jobs," Johnson said, throwing up his hands in mock exasperation.
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