Wednesday, February 24, 2010

Scott Walker: Doing A Bad Job On Jobs

The other day, Scott "Always a candidate, never a governor" Walker made a highly irresponsible statement that he was going to bring 10,000 companies to Wisconsin and create 250,000 jobs if he were to be somehow become elected governor.

Predictably, this outlandish statement raise quite a furor.

Mike Tate, head of the Wisconsin Democratic Party, fired away, claiming that Walker had never created a job in his entire time as county executive. With all due respect to Mr. Tate, he is almost as off base as Walker in such a dramatic statement.

Of course, Walker has created jobs. He has made up some high paying county positions to reward his campaign staffers like Tim Russell and Bob Dennik, to name just a couple.

Scot Ross, of One Wisconsin Now, also issued a statement in which he pointed out that Walker's claim meant that all but 900 people would have a job. Ross goes on to point out that Walker's crazy promises included billions of dollars in tax breaks for the top 1% of income earners and big corporations which would double the deficit the state is currently facing.

This would seem to hold true to Walker's standard modus operandi. He has currently saddled Milwaukee County with hundreds of millions of dollars in deferred maintenance and repair costs to our infrastructure. Furthermore, for 2010, Walker created an illegal budget with a $32 million hole built in the middle of it. While the County Board has been able to knock it down a bit, there still remained a hole more than $10 million dollars which Walker has yet to address.

Cory Liebmann also filled in many of the things wrong with Walker's claim, such as Walker's refusal to accept job-creating stimulus dollars, Walker's infamous statement comparing bringing jobs to Milwaukee County to putting lipstick on a pig, and Walker's abolishing of the economic development department.

Heck, Walker's claims were so outlandish that it caused Mark Neumann to finally find the on-switch to his campaign and come out firing both barrels at Walker.

Personally, I think the truth is worse than any of these people realize. If you look at Walker's track record as county executive, not only will Walker fail to bring any new jobs to Wisconsin, if he holds true to form, he will actually increase the unemployment number by tens of thousands of people as he lays off state workers.

Well, all of this flack has caused Team Walker to become very defensive, making claims that are just as laughable as his original one.

Team Walker tweeted that TOMMY!!! had done it during his tenure as governor. I won't even go into whether that claim is realistic, but point out that TOMMY!!! had also jacked up the taxes on the middle and lower classes, ballooned the state budget to almost double its size, and had added thousands of state employees during those years. Is Walker now flip flopping once again? Or is he just talking out of his butt, as usual?

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel is also covering this volley of reactions, and in a rare act of journalism (probably because it wasn't Steve Schultze doing the reporting) got Walker to admit that his claim was based on numbers from before the recession and from other states:
Walker said his projections for job growth were based on assumptions that were supplied by economic advisers who relied on job growth before 2008 when the economy was stronger. They also measured job growth from successful initiatives in other states like Texas.

They assumed cuts in tax rates, less regulation, tort reform, improvements in education and health care, and rebuilding infrastructure.
At least Walker has finally admitted that he is not in touch with reality. But considering that he doesn't value education or health care and apparently has no experience with rebuilding an infrastructure, based on a recent report, I think that there is still a lot of denial in Walker's world.

The article in the paper goes on to report about Walker's retort to Mike Tate's assertions:
Walker's response to Tate's claims: He would accept stimulus funds under some circumstances. He is worried about cost overruns in President Barack Obama's administration's funding for high-speed rail. He said the state will still be on the hook for about $7 million a year in operating subsidies.
Yeah. We already know all about the county executive's new clothes and how well they cover him on this issue.

But the most pitiful, and most damning, issue was when Walker tried to play the "me, too" game and got slapped silly for it:

Walker also said he has played a role in M7.

As for Barrett's claims of wooing jobs with the help of M7 for Republic Airlines, Walker said: "That was a team win - not a Tom Barrett win." Walker said the county played a role, too.

Over the first five years of M7, the City of Milwaukee has provided $150,000 and the county $25,000.

Pat O'Brien, president of M7, declined to say which unit of government plays a bigger role, but said, "the city has more tools at their disposal," ranging from tax credits to an active economic development office.

This petulant response was in response to something Tom Barrett came out with, in which he pointed out that he is the one that was actually bringing jobs in. When the head of M7 points out that Walker was a big flop in helping them bring in new businesses and jobs, it shoots a really big hole in any mealy-mouthed claims that would have people believe otherwise.

It is ironic that while Walker is going around claiming that he would create jobs if he were to be elected governor, he is busy getting ready to send out nearly sixty pink slips to county workers this Friday. Walker is a man that has no shame or moral compunctions, that is for sure.

In summary, when it comes to jobs, it is abundantly clear that the only job that Walker is really good at is giving the voters a snow job and then no job.

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