Johnson cooks up voter support at Sunshine deli

By: 
Jill Meier, Journal editor

Dusty Johnson wants to bring some South Dakota common sense to Washington, D.C. as the state’s next Congress representative.  Jill Meier/BV Journal

Dusty Johnson wants to be South Dakota’s next U.S. House of Representative. And he has 12 suggestions – termed “Dusty’s Dozen” – he feels are critical to get Washington working again. Last month, the Republican shared his 12 ways to improve America with morning coffee drinkers at the Sunshine Foods deli and listened to their concerns.
“A lot of people are nervous about federal spending. They understand that we can’t just burn the whole city to the ground. They realize that you need to have a federal government and it needs to do a certain number of things, but there isn’t anybody who is proud of a $20 trillion debt and were going to make it bigger by a trillion dollars a year in the years to come,” Johnson said. “I think they understand there aren’t easy answers but they do want the sense that somebody’s got a plan.”
Congress, he said, needs to follow South Dakota’s lead. The deficit, he said, needs more than discretionary spending cuts. 
“We should cut discretionary spending because we want a lean and efficient federal government but it will take some large systemic structural changes to be able to balance this budget,” he said. “I’m not talking about doing anything for people who are 70 years old or 60 years old or 50 years old; we need to make good on the promises we made. But for somebody my age, I’ll turn 42 before the election, we need to be willing to ask what the right age is for you to be able to retire from a Medicare and Social Security perspective. When Social Security was founded the life expectancy of an American man was 64 years. … It doesn’t make a lot of sense that my three sons, who may out-live me 10 or 15 years, will retire the same day that I would retire, so we need to have a meaningful adult conversation about as life expectancies grow, how much of that should be spent on leisure and how much of that should be spent working, and I’m willing to have those tough conversations.”
The same way Johnson want to hold citizens more accountable, he also wants to hold Congress accountable, too, keying in on term limits and balancing the budget. 
“I don’t think people should go and be able to spend 40 years in Congress. It’s hard to imagine they could ever have a fire in their belly for effective government after they’ve been there for years,” Johnson said. “And I think this deficit spending is all too easy when there is no requirement for Congress to balance the budget. Let’s put it in the Constitution. We need to be able to change the system so we can get a federal government that works better.”
Welfare reform is another key point of Dusty’s Dozen. 
Johnson reports the most commonly purchased item with food stamps today is soda pop. “I don’t mind paying taxes if it’s to help make sure the nutritional needs of poor kids are met, but I would submit that the nutritional needs of poor kids are not being met with soda pop being the most commonly purchased item,” he said.
Work requirements should also be tagged to this. Johnson said if a welfare recipient is capable of working, he/she should. The federal government, however, doesn’t allow states to have a work requirement to receive Medicaid. “The current administration is talking about changing that, but if you’re a 30-year-old guy in Minnesota and just decided that you don’t want to work, your income drops to zero and you’re on Medicaid. Your health care costs are borne predominantly by the state and federal government, by the states and federal taxpayers and I just think that’s a bad message to send to people. I think work is dignity. I think work is how we improve our lives.”
Another example is the current opioid meth epidemic. “We’re by in large not testing welfare recipients. I don’t think we want to do drug testing to be mean to people who might need assistance. I think we want to drug test so we can get them help. They may have kids at home that are at risk of abuse and neglect because we know what terrible demons these drugs are. Let’s get mom or dad clean, so that they can improve their life and the lives of their kids.”
When Johnson left his post as Governor Mike Rounds’ Chief of Staff four years ago, a bid at U.S. Congress wasn’t among his plans. 
“When I walked out of the State Capitol four years ago, I thought I was sober, I thought I was on the wagon. Put it another way, I thought I was going to go live a normal life. I’m part of a great business, I get to see my family a lot, I work hard and I’m well-compensated for what I do,” he said. “I, like a lot of people, just grow increasingly frustrated with a sense that we can do better than we’re doing, and I think there are only two things you can do if you really get frustrated with the system: You can give up or you can dig in even deeper, and I’m just not wired to give up.”
Johnson is wise enough to know he doesn’t have all the answers. 
“But I think a better thing to do is to acknowledge that Washington doesn’t have all the answers. I’m a big believer in federalism, the idea that we can get better policy solutions by engaging states and communities,” he said. “The Constitution makes it pretty clear that there’s things that is the federal government’s job and we’ve really crept outside of that core responsibilities quite a ways. I think you get more innovation. I think you get more entrepreneurship when you’ve got families, businesses, communities, states trying to find solutions.”
He’s confident his prior experience in Pierre – six years on the Public Utilities Commission and four years as the Gov. Rounds’ Chief of Staff – will make him an effective leader for South Dakota in Washington. 
“You can get elected running on bumper sticker slogans; I don’t think you can govern that way. These are complex problems and I think we want to apply policy solutions that are evidence-based, that are tried and true. The PUC is all about that. You can’t render a decision unless there is support for it in the evidentiary record. As Chief of Staff for the Governor, I think I saw how you can cut budgets without imposing the draconian pain that people fear that come with budget cuts. You can see that having to tighten your belt can bring about more effective and efficient ways to solve problems. We can certainly see that D.C. can use a bit more of that.”
Johnson said constituents remain concerned about the Farm Bill, which is up for reauthorization this year.
“I don’t think they’re going to get it done,” Johnson said, “which means we will need to tackle a new Farm Bill in 2019, so our new member of the House is going to have to hit the ground running.”
Johnson has read 641-page House Agriculture Committee draft. “I don’t know if there are five people in the state that have read all 641 pages,” he said. “But I really understand agriculture and how important rural America is to this state and to this country. That’s where I’ve worked and those are the issues that I’ve worked on in both my political and private sector careers.” 
If elected, Johnson promises to work to continue to increase CRP acres, implement a new CRP-like program and improve eligibility for an availability of livestock programs.
Johnson is one of five Republicans whose name will be on the June 5 primary ballot. He joins Matt Johnson, Shantel Krebs, Neal Tapio and Eric Terrell. The winner advances to the November ballot.
Between now and the June primary, Johnson will be pounding the pavement.
“It’s amazing to me how often candidates feel like they can just campaign on TV. They buy TV commercials, so that I guess helps them get elected,” he said. “But I think if you want to be elected you’ve got to be willing to interview for the job, and that means looking people in the eye, shaking their hand, and going to meet them where they work and where they live. That’s really what brings me to Brandon. There are thousands of people that care about our voice in Congress, but they’re busy leading their lives. You need to be willing to come her to campaign, you need to campaign after hours when people who work for a living can see you. I think you need to be willing to go to festivals and fairs and grocery stores and libraries to connect with people and give them a chance to ask the hard questions. I’ve been in Brandon probably a dozen times in the last year as I’ve been campaigning, and I’ll certainly be here again in the four weeks between now and the primary.”
allow logging.
State healthcare block grants: Johnson said federal government should provide the 50 states “laboratories of democracy” unprecedented flexibility to design ways to address healthcare.
Federal drug courts: Drug courts are a proven and cost-effective way to hold offenders accountable, save money and get people clean. The program has proven to work in South Dakota. “More than 80 percent of graduates from South Dakota’s drug courts do not re-offend,” Johnson said, encouraging specialty courts within the federal judiciary system.

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