Email From Governor Walker's Office Fudges Job Pledge, Losses

The Governor's office has emailed a long list of boasts that reads very much like a campaign document, and includes this fact-defying spin:

I promised to help the private sector create 250,000 new jobs by 2015.  After 3 years of net private sector job losses totaling 150,000, in the first 11 months of 2011 Wisconsin had a net increase of thousands of new jobs.  Because of the hard work done so far to improve Wisconsin’s business climate, employers are willing to grow and invest in our state.  That is good for middle class working families and it is good for Wisconsin.  We are on our way to creating 250,000 jobs by 2015, but there is more work to be done in order to meet and surpass that goal. 

First of all, his promise about 250,000 new jobs was more explicit than "to help the private sector" create these jobs. He has said "my job is to create 250,000 jobs in the private sector."
And that's the "minimum," he said.

"To create" is doing, not helping.

Figuring Walker would try to water down that pledge, as he is doing, I have twice posted his actual words, and here they are again, beginning with a bold iteration quoted in the Wisconsin State Journal

"I want my Cabinet secretaries to have branded across their heads, '250,000 jobs,'" Walker said at a December 2010 meeting of the Dairy Business Association. "I want them to know their job is on the line because my job is on the line to create 250,000 jobs in the private sector."

*  Here are others reprised earlier on my blog.

*  And he told the Waupaca Chamber of Commerce, - - quoted in a Journal Sentinel story - - that 250,000 new jobs was only the minimum:

Gov. Scott Walker's legacy will, in many respects, be measured by one number: 250,000. That's the number of private-sector jobs Walker promised will be created during his four-year term, which began in January.

It was the central promise of his 2010 campaign, and Walker has mentioned it routinely since taking office. He says everything his administration does is based on improving the state's economic climate, and says he is pushing the "most aggressive pro-jobs agenda in the country."

At a recent appearance before the Waupaca Chamber of Commerce, Walker called the 250,000 figure "a minimum, not a maximum."

Furthemore, Walker says in the email that since he took office, Wisconsin had "a net increase of thousands of jobs." Clever, but only partially true.

The real story is the continuing loss of Wisconsin jobs - - the worst performance among all 50 states, as documented by federal data.

PolitiFact has it charted. Yes, there is new job gain is in the thousands, as there are losses in the thousands, too.

Which is why Walker's Department of Revenue is predicting he will fall short of creating 250,000 jobs by 2015. By 102,000 jobs.

Can we stop with the taxpayer-paid propaganda?