Wednesday, August 11, 2010

Scott Walker's Other Republican Opponent

Most people around the state are well aware of two of the Republican gubernatorial candidates. There is, of course, Scott Walker, the floundering and failing Milwaukee County Executive. His primary opponent that is receiving a lot of attention is Mark Neumann.

However, there appears to be another opponent that Walker will have to overcome. This other opponent is almost a peculiar mirror image of Walker, at lease in appearance. But when you listen to him, he sounds like the anti-Walker, much like the Bizarro Superman from DC Comics was a weird, distorted version of the real Superman. In the Bizarro universe, everything was backwards. In other words, up was down and good was bad.

Unfortunately, it appears that because of their similar appearance, the media and the public in general is having a very difficult time telling the real Scott Walker and the Bizarro Walker apart.

Fortunately for you, gentle reader, you have me to guide you to the difference between them with showing you some examples:

On Thursday, July 8, 2010, Bizarro Walker introduced a plan to save tax payers money by cutting vacant positions, even though in reality, it would not save the tax payers one cent.

The real Walker actually uses the same ploy that Governor Doyle used, by not filling all those vacant positions and using the money to fill the holes in his faulty budgets.

Just a couple of days ago, Bizarro Walker said that he would save tax payers millions of dollars by "cutting waste" including excessive overtime.

However, the real Scott Walker, thanks to his irresponsibly excessive layoffs and furloughs, and an inability to produce one single balanced budget, has racked up overtime costs at a rate that is exponentially greater than the state's:
In 2008, Milwaukee County had a budget of $1,342,940,239 and $18,600,330 in overtime costs - 1.4 percent of its overall budget. The state in 2008 had a budget of $29,142,261,200 and $66.5 million in overtime costs - a mere 0.2 percent of its overall budget. Walker has averaged $15 million in overtime costs a year throughout his tenure as county executive. Milwaukee County Department of Administrative Services; Milwaukee County Executive Budgets: 2003-2009; Wisconsin Legislative Fiscal Bureau]
In the same proposal as the overtime, Bizarro Walker also said that he would cut waste in the form of fraud, specifically citing child care fraud in an advertisement.

However, as Mayor Tom Barrett points out, the real Walker was actually in charge of the child care enforcement for Milwaukee County which became a leading story with the tens, if not hundreds, of millions of dollars being fraudulently given out:

"The state's audit was released in tandem with a Milwaukee County audit that found the county lacks a strategic approach to finding fraud and has no way to routinely identify suspicious billing," the story said.

The story noted county Audit Director Jerome Heer's report said there was "little in the way of a coherent approach to fraud."

Indeed, I had pointed out last year the tale of Cindy Jaeger, who was not only leading the county in ferreting out and recouping fraud, but was also the best in the state and the nation. Cindy did this despite being part of the severely understaffed Income Maintenance Program which the state had to eventually take over due to Walker's ineptitude.

(As a bonus to this example, Walker's campaign said that it was really Governor Doyle's fault, but in their rationale, show that they are really the culprit:

"Tom Barrett is yet again trying to desperately shift attention away from failures of his pal (Gov.) Jim Doyle," said a statement from Keith Gilkes, Walker's campaign manager. "Nice try, Tom. The problems continue to be with state licensed child care facilities and the fact that Jim Doyle has failed to fix this program after years of abuse within the system."

His campaign noted the state is in charge of the program and the county merely implements the policies for Wisconsin Shares at the local level.

Um, yeah. Unless Walker's team can show the state law that says they are supposed to pay out money fraudulently, all they did is reinforce the fact that Walker couldn't run the program worth a damn. Not exactly something you want to show in order to run the entire state.)

As a final example, just this afternoon, Bizarro Walker made the claim that he would not furlough troopers or prison guards.

In our reality, the real Walker furloughed both Sheriff deputies as well as the correction officers.

So you see, dear reader, that there is actually two Walkers, the real one that Milwaukee County citizens have suffered under for the past eight years, and the Bizarro Walker who the real wishes to be...

Huh? What's that? You say that they are both the one and the same Walker?

Why, that would mean that Walker is hypocrisy personified and a liar to boot! It would also mean that anyone that thinks he is an effective county executive and would make a good governor must be the ones living in an alternate universe.

1 comment:

  1. It looks like a three way between Scott Walker, Scott Walker and Mark Neumann. Maybe Mark has a chance now.

    ReplyDelete