My take on this… And Scott Walker in general:
Scott Walker doesn’t have a chance in hell of even a serious run for the Presidency. His purpose is to be the new Newt Gingrich—constantly running for office/the Presidency—but simply fundraising for himself/living off donations— and the Right wing causes he espouses. Basically, he’ll live off of donations for the rest of his life—That’s Walker’s goal.
Walker is a classic Grifter/a complete Fraud.
While Scott Walker has been sucking the life out of anything that could possibly aid in creating jobs in the state of Wisconsin, our neighbor to the west is in the middle of an economic boom.
Minnesota gained more jobs in the last 6 months than in any half-year since Reagan was president, personal incomes grew more last year than just about all other states, and the medium income in Minnesota is among the highest in the nation.
While all that has been happening in Minnesota, Wisconsin shed more jobs than any other state in 2011 and 2012.
GDP here last year grew by 3.5 percent compared to 2011, which is a full percentage point above than the national average of 2.5 percent. With a total GDP of $253 billion, the Minnesota economy clocked in as the 17th largest in the country.
Image by Tatiana Craine
This week in Wisconsin, Republicans and their best friends, a.k.a. lobbyists, went into a back room to work out a budget deal this week. I bet you can guess who the big losers are again… Wisconsin’s residents.
Of course, what budget from the GOP would be complete without an expansion.of school vouchers statewide. School vouchers, the GOP’s educational obsession. Oh, they included that in exchange for a modest per-pupil spending increase for public school students of around $150 per student.
To Scott Walker and other Republican beneficiaries of big-time campaign spending from school-choice groups, it is very important to get a deal on vouchers. Voucherizing public education is a conservative mission nationwide If Scott Walker can say he busted public employee unions AND siphoned public-school money into private schools, he will definitely look like a hero to the public education hating base of the GOP.
Before I go too far and bash every GOP lawmaker in the state, it should be know that a few key Republicans in some of the smaller, rural districts in our Legislature were not completely sold on school voucher expansion. For one thing, The current budget offered no increase in per-pupil spending, and a voucher program added to the problem, draining money from public schools to subsidize private-school kids’ tuition.
In rural districts with low enrollment, the draining of money from public schools to subsidize private school tuition may easily mean the shuttering of a school, or at a minimum the gutting of every extracurricular program in the school, be it musicals, friday night football, etc.
Because of the small fight put up by those more rural representatives, the GOP lawmakers and the school choice lobby went behind closed doors to work on a deal. The deal they came up with is a giant win for Scott Walker and the school-choice lobby, and a big, big loss for public education, the poor and the middle class in Wisconsin.
Republican holdouts including Mike Ellis and Luther Olsen seem to have accepted an increase of $150 in funding per pupil in exchange for taking vouchers statewide. Let us not forget that the per-pupil cut in the last Walker budget was $575 per student, so this small increase does NOTHING to improve what has already been lost.
It is estimated that the statewide voucher expansion will ultimately drain $1.9 billion out of the public school system every year. EVERY YEAR. Let me repeat that one more time… EVERY YEAR. That’s a pretty bad trade for a one-time increase that makes up for a little less than one-fourth of last year’s cut.
This new budget is a bad deal on multiple levels, but this obsession with school choice vouchers is ridiculous. Vouchers are a bad, bad deal. Public education is part of the foundation this country is built on. We cannot privitize everything and expect this state and this country to prosper. The countries with the best economies in the world have well funded, robust public education systems. If we continue to kill public education in this state and in this country we will continue to lose.
One Wisconsin Now to Highlight ’20 Years of Walker Failure’
Lifelong Politician’s Record to Be Examined for 20 Days Leading to June 29 Anniversary of Walker’s First Election
Madison — Beginning June 10, One Wisconsin Now will commemorate over 20 days, the failings, scandals and imbroglios of Gov. Scott Walker’s 20-years in elected office. Gov. Walker, who was first elected to the State Assembly on June 29, 1993, has spent virtually no time in the private sector and has enjoyed nearly half his life on the taxpayers’ dime, including receiving well over $1 million in salary alone, as well as health care benefits for he and his family.
“As Gov. Scott Walker crisscrosses the nation instead of doing his job in preparation for a run for the 2016 presidential race, the taxpayers of Wisconsin are reflecting on what they’ve gotten for the 20 years they’ve footed the bill for Scott Walker,” said Scot Ross, One Wisconsin Now Executive Director. “Beginning June 10, One Wisconsin Now will examine Gov. Walker’s long record of failure issue by issue in the 20 days leading up to the 20-year anniversary of his first election to office using our copious amounts of research on the subject of his failure.”
In addition to a steady stream of media releases from June 10 through June 29, “Walker at 20” will be highlighted on daily basis from on One Wisconsin Now’s Facebook page and via its twitter feed with the hashtag #Walkerat20.
“Our research will show what many in Wisconsin already know: when it comes to jobs, education, tax fairness, health care and our rights, over and over again, Scott Walker has failed Wisconsin,” said Ross. “And no anniversary like this would be complete without a cake befitting 20 years of failure, which the public can enjoy with One Wisconsin Now on Saturday, June 29.”
Scott Walker was a mere 25-years-old when he made his second run for political office in 1993, having moved to a Republican Assembly district after being soundly defeated for State Assembly at 22 against future U.S. Rep. Gwen Moore. Walker’s second run for office came after the upwardly-mobile then-political veteran claims to have voluntarily left Marquette University without a degree to pursue a part-time job at an apolitical non-profit organization.
Milwaukee Police Chief Edward Flynn on Friday blasted Gov. Scott Walker for being anti-urban and the Wisconsin Legislature’s budget committee for “gratuitous” decisions that killed a community policing grant for the Milwaukee Police Department and set in motion the departure of the State Crime Lab from Milwaukee.
In an expansive interview with the Journal Sentinel that touched on a variety of city topics, Flynn said the governor and the Republican-dominated Legislature seemed bent on hurting the city.
“I don’t know of a governor anywhere in the country who succeeded in turning his state’s economy around by actively facilitating the decline of his biggest city,” Flynn said. “This isn’t like, bad things are happening in Milwaukee and I can’t stop it. This is, can I put another stick in the eye of Milwaukee on another issue?”
“It’s certainly not good government,” he added. “There’s 600,000 people here. It’s not smart economic policy.”
Read Entire Article at JSOnline
I agree with Flynn and with former Milwaukee mayor John Norquist that “Without Milwaukee, Wisconsin is basically Iowa.”
Fagan Around 