Editors note: U.S. Rep. Dusty Johnson stopped by the Register office last week to speak with managing editor Josh Linehan and senior reporter John Kubal. What follows is a transcript of that conversation, edited lightly for style and readability.
Josh Linehan: Lets take Social Security, though. What is your idea of what a good fix would look like?
Dusty Johnson: Well first off, I would say we wont touch benefits for anybody whos receiving them today or who will in the near term. Its been an incredible disappointment, and frankly, a lie anytime anybody has fear mongered to the contrary. I mean, its impossible that we would touch benefits for people receiving them today. Anybody who alleges otherwise is engaged in utter fantasy. But Im going to live 20 years longer than my grandparents. For people my age, 48 and younger, I think we really need to talk about why it might make sense for me to work an extra 18 months to get an extra 18 years of retirement. That is the sort of deal that Democratic Speaker Tip ONeill and Republican President Ronald Reagan cut in 1983 they increased the retirement age by two years for Social Security, went from 65 to 67. They phased it in over decades, and it gave us decades of solvency for those programs. Were in an environment where there are three workers for every one retiree. The math doesnt work there. When Social Security was founded, there were 16 workers for every one retiree. The Ponzi scheme doesnt work unless we change the math as well.
Josh Linehan: And part of that is just right, our generation being smaller, right? Like, some adjustment would have had to be made for Gen X to support the boomers, just based on big numbers, right?
Dusty Johnson: Yeah, although the life expectancy of an American man in 1935 was 60, you know, if you get to 60, your life expectancy is in the 90s, right? And that was unusual then. It was not typical for somebody to make it, for men, particularly, to draw on Social Security. Now it is a foregone conclusion. And so, yeah, youre right. We have some issues. But, you know, Americas population is still growing. I mean, we still have a lot of young people.
Josh Linehan: Its, we have a very big group retiring.
Dusty Johnson: Yes. And people living a lot longer, right?
Josh Linehan: And what about, what about the income cap?
Dusty Johnson: I assume thats the kind of thing that folks on the other side of the aisle, will ask for to raise the retirement age.
Josh Linehan: Do you think theres some room for a compromise there, where a retirement age and a raise on the income cap makes the math work?
Dusty Johnson: Its not hard to imagine that a deal could be cut, but Im not going to negotiate against myself. Sure, right? I mean, Im not, Im not interested in giving, you know, the Democrats everything they want, so that they can ask for something else. And let me not even answer that way, we can solve this problem without increasing taxes. Now, if, if increasing taxes is, is the is what the Democrats demand. You know, well have a negotiation, but I would not assume anything about what a final deal would look like. It would be nice if we to get them to engage. The reality is that right now, we have a Kamala Harris who refuses to touch Medicare and Social Security. Those kind of statements guarantee insolvency in eight years, checks will get automatically cut by 17% if we dont act. You know, right now we have presidential candidates who are promising not to act. That guarantees insolvency.
John Kubal: You mentioned the toxic climate. Youve been around a few years now. Is it getting better, worse, staying the same?
Dusty Johnson: I do think that over the last, I have been in Congress six years, but its pretty evident to me that things have gotten worse. I think there are more people showing up in Congress that are interested in political celebrity rather than in problem solving. And theres not much reward in the systems for solving problems. Unfortunately, a lot of the incentives in the system reward bad behavior. I mean, I would observe, you know, the best fundraising members of the House are often members like AOC and Marjorie Taylor Green. Im not sure either of them have solved a single damn problem in their own careers, but theyre certainly better known to Americans, theyre more popular with the members of their base and theyre better fundraisers. And again, neither of them have ever solved a damn thing. So that really, I think, speaks to us needing an electorate who is willing to reward problem solving rather than howling at the moon.
Josh Linehan: And what can we do? What can we do to get that better? You know, because you say that, and I 100% agree, and then I think about the ways that, the ways that people take in information now, that exacerbate the problem. And you know, here we are fighting the good fight with the newspaper, but most people will just go to an algorithm-based something thats going to feed them, something that makes them angry, because thats everybody paying for the algorithm, looking for money, wants action and fear and anger stoke action.
Dusty Johnson: Its all junk food.
Josh Linehan: 100% junk food, and always will be, so long as theres a profit motive online, you know. So what do we? What do we do? How do we, how do we get because I think youre right, right? The problem is with the electorate not holding their representatives to account. But how do we, how do we get there?
Dusty Johnson: The decline of the responsible daily newspaper is as tied to the decline of American civil society, probably, as anything. All of us are consuming a lot more junk food news on social media. In the heyday of the American daily newspaper, sure, thered be some snacks, but was also a lot of health food.
Josh Linehan: Right? There was the horoscope, but yeah, you also got the zoning board coverage.
Dusty Johnson: Maybe not surprisingly, people are more inclined to choose junk food rather than to eat their vegetables. I dont know how to change that, other than to note that, you know, it has worked out in the past.
Im an optimist, in the same way that, for whatever reason, people at the dawn of the 20th century, started to move away from the yellow journalism newspapers that were every bit a partisan organ as the cable news outlets are today, people just kind of decided that they were interested in down the middle, fair news. I dont know what triggered that. I dont know what caused that fever to break, but it did, and ultimately, Hearst and others responded to market signals and forced their partisan organs to try to get more straight. Media and politicians will both respond incentives in the system.
Part I of this interview ran in Mondays Register.
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