Abolish Milwaukee County Government? Along With It, Scott Walker's Gubernatorial Aspirations

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel editorially takes the position that Milwaukee County's finances are so imperiled that abolishing the unit of government is the rational way out.

"Dissolve the County," says the editorial headline.

Pretty heavy.

The basis for the piece: a new report from the non-partisan Public Policy Forum, a Milwaukee non-profit with a long history of thoughtful and documented fiscal and policy analysis. Trust me: folks at the PPF aren't hysterics.

Little wonder that the newspaper's editorial board took the PPF findings and concluded the County should go.

Equally amazing: Milwaukee County Executive Scott Walker is trying to walk away from this fiscal and institutional meltdown by, what else?...running for higher office - - that of Governor - - just as the state itself is weighed down by revenue shortfalls.

So how on earth can Walker suggest to voters that he is the right person to serve as Governor?

Walker's been County Exec for nearly eight years, and came into office as the reformer who would fix the County's woes in the wake of a pension scandal that cost the previous Exec and a host of supervisors their positions.

Yet Walker was unable or unwilling to get a handle on the county's financial problems, in part because his real agenda - - his major distraction - - was motorcycling around the state in search of the governorship, and using the Milwaukee position to step up and into the Governor's office.

With, of course, constant encouragement from our brace of righty radio talkers who helped create Walker as County Exec as a Milwaukee-area GOP wunderkind and have been urging him to run for Governor from the beginning.

The result?

Milwaukee County is at the brink of insolvency and failure, yet the guy in the top job is looking to bail out - - bad enough - - while seeking a promotion - - far worse.