Ron Johnson (R-Wis.)

Johnson is critical of plans to withdraw troops from Afghanistan in 2011. "You don't go into war with a timeline. You go into war with a plan to win and a commitment to win," Johnson said.

Johnson said he "absolutely" supports term limits for members of Congress.

Fiscal Policy

On federal spending, Johnson said he would seek passage of a balanced-budget amendment and seek to peg spending to the gross domestic product or population growth and the inflation rate. Though stopping short of endorsing a budget plan advanced by Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), Johnson said it is a good start to addressing entitlement reform.

A critic of the $787-billion 2009 stimulus bill, Johnson said he would support a smaller package that focused on infrastructure and tax cuts as incentives for investing.

On Social Security, Johnson has called the program a "Ponzi scheme" while opposing both raising the payroll tax and forced privatization. He said one of the options for reform could be allowing younger people to invest in private accounts.

Johnson supports extending the Bush tax cuts for everyone, regardless of income.

Asked if he would promise not to take any Congressional earmarks of his own, Johnson said: "Yeah, we should eliminate them."

Health-Care Reform

Saying that "the passage of the massive and flawed health care bill was the single greatest assault on our freedom in my lifetime," Johnson said it served as a catalyst to run for the Senate and seek its repeal.

Johnson favors market-based solutions such as portaibility of insurance between jobs, tort reforms, the ability to purchase insurance across state lines and a "safety net" for those with preexisting conditions."

He says the Obama administration's estimation about the cost of reform are simply "not believable." Johnson also supports further health- savings accounts, pointing to measures backed by Gov. Mitch Daniels. (R-Ind.)

The Environment and Energy

A climate-change skeptic, Johnson attributes extreme weater to sunspots, not excessive carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. "I absolutely do not believe in the science of man-caused climate change," Johnson told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. "It's not proven by any stretch of the imagination." In the interview, Johnson called environmentalists who believe in manmade climate change "crazy" and their theory "lunacy."

Johnson called cap-and-trade measures to address climate change job killers that "would put an incredible burden on our economy."

Sen. Russ Feingold slammed Johnson for seeming to propose drilling for oil in the Great Lakes, though Johnson says he was misconstrued as such activity is prohibited by federal law and reserves are too small.

"Yeah, you know, the bottom line is, we are an oil based economy and there's nothing we're going to do to get off of that for many, many years. So we have to be realistic and recognize that fact," Johnson said in July 2010.

But Johnson does support opening the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling.

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