"Wrong-Way" Walker Papers Over Wausau-Area Job Losses

[Updated 10:53 a.m. Monday from Sunday, 6:27 p.m.] Governor Walker took to Twitter to tout a Wausau paper products company that he said had boosted its employment by 25% since 2012, but a little digging showed why Walker, inveterate job-numbers phony and master of political chaff and misdirection, deserves the nickname "Wrong-Way." 

Here's the Tweet:

Scott Walker @ScottWalker · Jul 2Toured Wausau Container Corp. They increased workforce 25% in past two years:

Read that, and you think, as did I, 'Wow: 25%. A big number and a boost for the Wausau area.'

That's good, important news, since the Wausau/Marathon County area has lost hundreds of legacy paper industry jobs at Wausau Paper Corp. on "Wrong-Way" Walker's watch:

In another blow to Wisconsin's papermaking industry, Wausau Paper Corp. on Wednesday said it will close its paper mill in Brokaw and eliminate 450 jobs.

But now, a 25% increase, at one paper business!

And I wondered,  how many jobs is he talking about? 

Not workforce percentages. Actual new jobs.

That figure appears to be 13, though you won't find it in his percentage-touting Tweet.

*  For that figure, and its full context, you have to plow through the self-serving misdirection aplenty in a Walker campaign press release issued the same day as the Tweet:

Wausau Container Corporation was founded in 1992 and expanded from a 14,000 square-foot facility to a 65,000 square-foot facility, adding 13 new jobs since July 2012.

Yes, 13 new jobs is a nice bump for the company - - and it looks like it's a nice place with a good story to tell, devoid of campaign hype - - but 13 jobs won't cover but a minuscule fraction of the previous job losses at once-mighty Wausau Paper Corp.

And that's the heart of the phony papers Gov. Wrong-Way is peddling.

Which Walker also did when touting the number of people he added to BadgerCare's low-income health insurance plan to draw attention away from an even larger number he kicked off the plan when turning down federal Medicaid funding that would have covered everyone.

The Wausau paper jobs number game gets even worse because the New York-based hedge fund that took control of Wausau Paper Corp. and forced out workers by the hundreds also wants the remaining "few dozen" managerial and executive positions moved out-of-state, too.

Wiping out, on paper, the net gain of 13 paper industry jobs.

Just because you're 140,000 jobs short of meeting your campaign's signature promise of 250,000 new private-sector jobs to be created in one term doesn't mean you should overstate the value of a few jobs when they appear.