Ron Johnson touched on gun and education policy while answering questions from students and their teachers in Kiel on Tuesday.
KIEL – A Republican Senator from Wisconsin told an audience of high school students Tuesday that putting more police and finding ways to boost security in schools would be preferable to tightening gun restrictions.
Ron Johnson, answering a bevy of policy questions from a group of students and their teachers in Kiel, said he also wished the federal and state governments would stay increasingly out of schools' business, leaving K-12 systems to operate more competitively in a free market, similar to the businesses he once operated.
But finding ways to reduce the prevalence of guns in the U.S., Johnson acknowledged, was unlikely.
Johnson touched on a broad range of subjects led by students' and teachers' questioning on Tuesday, though issues surrounding school safety and education policy featured prominently early in the roughly 45-minute discussion.
Still, he said he'd prefer to reduce the government's involvement to simply funding schools and ensuring students aren't "left behind." Otherwise, he said, he'd rather schools operated in the sorts of open markets that his past businesses worked in.
"Take a look at the rest of our economy," he said. "Whether it's cellphones or just about anything else, the free market competitive system, by and large, guarantees the best possible quality, the best level of customer service and the lowest possible price.
"The marketplace is a brutal dictator — evaluator — of how you perform," he said, before opining that America's outdated educational system — "we still are operating pretty much on a 19th-century model" — was leaving U.S. students ill-prepared for the modern economy.
Johnson said he'd prefer a "100 percent school voucher system" that he said would increase competition among schools and give students and their families more freedom in choosing what schools to attend.
"Probably not real popular with the people in public education," he conceded.
Military conflict in Korea "would be a slaughter," said Johnson, who credited President Donald Trump for prompting North Korean leader Kim Jong Un back "to the negotiating table" in recent peace talks.
Still, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee member said he remained skeptical of the North's intentions and said he supported U.S. terms for relaxing sanctions on the reclusive country where nuclear missile projects have long been a concern among American presidents.
Johnson told a reporter after Tuesday's forum that he's "hopeful" the U.S. will rejoin the Trans-Pacific Partnership. Trump pulled the U.S. out of the trade agreement shortly after he took office, but has hinted recently that he's willing to reconsider.
Johnson has remained a supporter of America's role in the TPP, and said last month he appreciated Trump's willingness to reconsider the agreement that the senator has said could help the U.S. increase its leverage over China.
Johnson told students he decided to get involved in politics after his dismay over previous action by former President Barack Obama and Congress to approve sweeping healthcare legislation known as the Affordable Care Act, and more commonly referred to as "Obamacare."
The legislation, aimed at increasing access to healthcare in the U.S., had pushed "millions of Americans" off their healthcare plans and caused other financial problems for the country, Johnson said.
The senator told students he encouraged people interested in running for office to work in the private sector first, noting "the most frustrating thing" he's experienced in Congress is working with people who he said are "out of touch" with average Americans.