washington, dc

The Democratic Strategist

Political Strategy for a Permanent Democratic Majority

Wisconsin Job-Killer Scott Walker Caught Lying . . . Again

In his/her post “Scott Walker Caught in Another Big, Fat Lie” at Daily Kos, Puddytat gives the Republican Governor of Wisconsin a richly-deserved skewering. It goes like this:

He’s running for President re-election as Wisconsins Governor, donchaknow, so the propaganda he spews is becoming even more ridiculous as he scrambles to avoid talking about the 250,000 jobs he didn’t create (move along, nothing to see here, peasants).
At first he tried to backtrack on his one promise in 2010: that he, if elected Governor, would create 250,000 jobs in his first term. That, in his own words, was “the floor and not the ceiling” since he expected to “create” many more in his first term. He’s not quite halfway there because of the austerity economy that he and his Republican Legislative majorities has put in place. He failed miserably trying to walk it back (scrubbing it from his web site and other places as well as trying hard to change the subject every time “the jobs question” comes up).
His latest failure is trying to pivot from “jobs” to “business creation”. At campaign events he’s patting himself on the back for “creating” 17,000 new businesses in Wisconsin. So shameless is this assertion that even his pals at PolitiFact and the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel have called him out on it…The problem they’ve exposed is how the numbers have been extensively padded solely to benefit Walker. They’ve been exaggerated to the point that Walkers numbers are simply a lie.

The post goes on to quote Politifact nailing Walker for his penchant for exaggeration, to put it charitably — counting Boy Scouts, Fire Department and other volunteer gigs as “jobs,” along with out-of-state investors who registered in Wiscoinsin, but did most of their hiring in their own states. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel also exposes Walkers lies, adding “Stretching the truth, as the governor is doing in this case, serves no one but himself” — a harsh diss coming from the state’s most widely-read rag.
Walker is also called out for his job-killing policies, including:

…One of Walkers very first actions (cancelling the high speed rail line between Milwaukee and Madison) sent Wisconsins economy back. Gone were the jobs to build the rail line which was completely funded by the Federal Government. Also gone was the new factory (and the hundreds of high paying jobs) that Talgo was preparing to build in Milwaukee to manufacture high speed rail cars. Not only do we not have those jobs, but Talgos facilities in Milwaukee were also recently shut down for good with the loss of existing high paying jobs.

In most states, job loss and economic stagnation can usually be attributed to several causes. Not so much in Wisconsin, where Walker’s extremist economic policies are laser-focused on enriching his fat-cat supporters at the expense of everyone else. As the post concludes, Walker’s “failure to “create” 250,000 new jobs is entirely his fault.”

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.