A U.S. senator says he doesn’t have a problem with a major manufacturer from his home state locating jobs hundreds of miles away.
U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., instead told reporters, “It's not like we don't have enough jobs here.”
Johnson, currently running for a third term, was asked about Oshkosh Defense, whose parent company is based in his hometown.
The company, which secured the contract to build a new fleet of U.S. Postal Service vehicles, will build the mail trucks in South Carolina.
Johnson, a former plastics company executive, said he wouldn’t try to change Oshkosh’s mind in order to bring the estimated 1,000 new jobs to Wisconsin.
He said companies’ inability to find enough workers is “the biggest problem we have in Wisconsin right now,” the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel reports.
He also said he wouldn't insert himself into company decisions involving federal contracts.
Fellow U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin, D-Wis., responded, “It’s my job to support job creation in Wisconsin and I want the trucks built here.”
