Johnson’s drama doesn’t help tax reform

Late in July, while the U.S. Senate was in the middle of a vote to proceed on the so-called “skinny repeal” of Obamacare’s individual health care mandate, Republican Senator Ron Johnson approached Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. The two senators engaged in a tense discussion, with McConnell throwing up his hands as if Johnson had just spoiled that week’s “Game of Thrones” episode. National cable news outlets carried the tussle live, providing play by play of each senator’s expressions.

Johnson ended up voting for the motion, but not after adding some unnecessary drama to the proceedings. He had previously expressed disdain at other GOP Obamacare repeal plans, but on this day Americans’ health care hung in the balance while Johnson played Hamlet. (Alas, poor Yorick died waiting for Republicans to lower his premiums.)

During the more recent debate over the Republicans’ plan to cut both individual and business taxes, Johnson once again signaled that public indecision would be his go-to move. Last week, Johnson became the first Republican to publicly oppose the new tax plan, believing the package benefited corporations more than other types of businesses.

“If they can pass it without me, let them,” Johnson told The Wall Street Journal. “I’m not going to vote for this tax package.”

Johnson’s opposition quickly drew the condemnation of Jim Sensenbrenner, a long-time Republican member of the House, who told local talk radio host Mark Belling that Johnson had been “strutting around like a peacock” promoting his opposition to the bill. Johnson later told Belling that he was simply trying to get his concerns addressed and has subsequently said the changes he’s sought are being made.

But it’s also clear that Johnson is going to continue to leverage his vote to get what he wants, which causes chaos for Senate leadership that can’t afford to lose any votes for major bills.

This likely isn’t by accident; in 2016, Senate leadership gave up on Johnson’s re-election efforts, pulling nearly $800,000 in television ads during Johnson’s run against Democratic challenger Russ Feingold. And yet on election night, Johnson managed to win a stunning victory over Feingold, far outpolling Donald Trump in Wisconsin. For McConnell and the senators that left Johnson to die on the battlefield, payback certainly may be afoot.

It doesn’t help that Johnson is a long-time business owner who knows how to use leverage to get his own way. During his first campaign in 2010, he was often uncompromising in his positions, and he seemed to be exactly what the Senate needed — a politician who didn’t actually need the job.

But much like a wide receiver who goes outside the locker room to decry his lack of touches to the media, Johnson is causing drama where there shouldn’t be any. He has said that progress has been made on the bill since he went public, but it seems his concerns could be addressed without damaging the rest of the team.

Further, every politician has to swallow some portions of a large bill that he or she doesn’t like. At the state level, the budget is stuffed with thousands of individual items that individual members may support or oppose but at some point, they all have to come together and judge the package as a whole. (The most recent budget was held hostage by a triumvirate of senators who so angered Assembly Speaker Robin Vos that he deemed them “terrorists.”)

No one begrudges a politician with strongly-held beliefs but when threatening to scuttle tax reform in the name of your pet cause becomes a predictable part of your oeuvre, it may be time to soften your tactics.

As P.J. O’Rourke once put it, Johnson sees compromise “in the sense that being bitten in half by a shark is a compromise with being swallowed whole.”

But in order for tax reform to succeed, Johnson has to answer the only question that ultimately matters: To be or not to be a diva.