Saturday, December 28, 2013

Walker's Poor Jobs Record needs Constant Media Push by Democrats.

There's nothing real earth shaking in the following observations, some old some new, but message is loud and clear; there's something is terribly wrong in Wisconsin under Scott Walker. Let's start with this from PR Watch/May 2013, and PolicyMic:
Former Gov. Doyle started recovery, Walker tanked it.
Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker got a boost from the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) in its annual Rich States, Poor States report. Despite Bureau of Labor Statistics data putting Wisconsin in 44th place for private-sector job creation, ALEC placed the state as 15th in the country in its ranking of economic outlook, giving Walker -- a former ALEC member -- a boost as he lays the groundwork for a re-election campaign and a possible Presidential bid. The report effectively grades states in line with the very policy positions that ALEC promotes through its "model" legislation. Since Walker took office in 2010, job growth in Wisconsin has taken a nosedive. Walker's steep and controversial budget cuts abruptly moved Wisconsin from positive territory into negative territory as the graph illustrates.
We hope the media will wake up to the major influence think tanks and lobbyist have on the Republican Party, and bring them up often. That goes for the greatly under-reported ALEC propaganda machine, which is spinning press release after release to specifically help campaigns like Walker's:
The purpose of these rankings is to push the ugly legislative agenda of ALEC, which gives a state like Wisconsin, which has grown terribly but whose governor has shown a penchant for union-busting, a gold star while other union-friendly states get hit with low marks. The Laffer-ALEC index assumes that taxes drive wealthy people out of state, decreasing tax revenues. That’s false. The Laffer-ALEC index assumes that lower taxes will bring in more revenues (an idea for which Laffer is famous, a central tenet of supply-side economics). That’s false. The Laffer-ALEC index assumes that the estate tax reduces growth.That’s false. Unsurprisingly, with these variables, only states with a Republican governor are in the top 10 of the analysis.
Want a reality check? Today's to the point comment appeared in the Journal Sentinel, written by One Wisconsin Now's Scot Ross:
Gov. Scott Walker recently opined in The Washington Post that he believes shutdown-mired Washington, D.C., could learn something from his example in the Badger State. But upon taking the oath of office as governor, Walker, the right-wing Bradley Foundation's golden boy, provoked unprecedented chaos that reverberates today in Wisconsin's severely divided politics. Any pollster who has worked in Wisconsin since 2011 will tell you there is now not a more politically polarized state in the nation. As governor, Walker has cut 92,000 working Wisconsinites off their health care, slashed funding for public education at all levels by record amounts, while larding the wealthy and special interests with massive tax breaks and signed into law programs to reward politically connected but unqualified cronies with state tax dollars.

The result has been that Wisconsin has significantly lagged the national and regional pace of job creation and economic recovery.

Ironically — besides the Greek debt crisis, the Affordable Care Act and the weather — Walker has blamed his abysmal economic track record on the political chaos his own approach to governing triggered.

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