Not The Onion: Walker to speak at FL economic growth summit

Look out, Sunshine State. a chill from the north is headed your way.

Though he missed his 250,000 new jobs promise by about half, dragged Wisconsin to 40th place among the states in jobs added and last in middle-class retention, Floridians have decided Walker is the guy they want to hear at their growth summit today.

Will he tout his broken and scandal-ridden Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation, from which his own party just bounced him as its sole board chairman to date?

Will they hand out copies of this 2014 story about the largest loan the WEDC gave to a business in slow-growth Northern Wisconsin?

One of the high profile companies to receive backing from the Wisconsin Economic Development Corp. is again delinquent on its loans with the state. 

Superior-based Kestrel Aircraft Company — a firm touted by Gov. Scott Walker as an example of his business recruitment efforts — hasn’t made any payment on its $4 million in loans since October. It is supposed to pay $6,600 monthly and is now over $26,000 in arrears.

Or this one?

MADISON (WKOW) -- At least two companies that received financial awards from the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation (WEDC) later outsourced jobs to foreign countries, with one of those companies receiving a second WEDC award after the fact. 

A 27 News investigation has uncovered that both the Eaton Corporation and Plexus Corporation received millions of dollars in financial awards from WEDC, only to later lay off workers whose jobs were taken by employees at the companies' foreign facilities.

Or this more recent story?

Gov. Scott Walker’s top aides and a powerful lobbyist pressed for a taxpayer-funded loan in 2011 to a financially struggling Milwaukee construction company that lost the state half a million dollars, created no jobs and raised questions about where the money went, a State Journal investigation has found... 

The loan, which was not repaid, is one of several agency awards that state auditors have questioned since Walker created the agency in 2011. Last year, WEDC, the state’s flagship job-creation agency, took the unusual step of suing BCI in an attempt to get the money back.

Seriously, this would be like bringing Donald Trump to a workshop on humility, or British Petroleum's CEO to talk up oil rigs as clean-water facilities.

And while his budget is stalled in Madison, Walker continues his political excursions on state salary, with Iowa on tap after his Florida-fun-in-the-sun.