[Updated on 9/8 from 9/4/2016, 10.29 a.m.] If you have been graced since January 2011 to soak up a Fortune 500 CEO's lifestyle in a generously-staffed 34-room, 20,000-square foot gardened and manicured lakefront Georgian Revival mansion in a tony suburb, and that residence is rated second most beautiful nationally in its class, and also ninth-largest, given its 13 bathrooms, seven fireplaces and two kitchens…
And you also enjoy gaudy perks including a super pension, Cadillac-level health insurance, unlimited time off, your pick of art for the mansion's walls to hang or reject, a free security detail along with the best downtown office suite nearby to which you are routinely chauffeured, where a brace of personal assistants and other staff totaling 37 - - not to mention hundreds of others you have hand-picked for big jobs in other agencies that will spend tends of billions of dollars annually to implement your plans - - plus you've got drivers, cars, pilots and airplanes ready to whisk you to wherever and whenever at your 24/7 beck and call, you no doubt would feel like you're living The American Dream.
Exclusively.
But suppose other people, like taxpayers in a low-wage, slow-growth state are picking up that tab, and you've only held government jobs for the last 23 straight years - - basically your entire adult life - - and you enforce austerity on everyday people while showering other perks on CEO's and high earners, the last thing you'd expect to hear from such an inveterate public trough freeloader is a high-profile speech bashing government dependency.
But that is exactly what the afore-mentioned mansion occupant and Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker was doing Saturday, inveighing at a Koch brothers American Dream event near Disney World in Florida against government dependency.
And bragging about the thousands of poor people he had cut off food aid and touting the extra humiliation of a mandatory drug test Walker inserted into state rules which some aid applicants including those seeking unemployment insurance must pass before receiving subsistence benefits from taxpayers that pale in comparison to the millionaire lifestyle which tax dollars provide to him.
All in a state, mind you, which still has the state-enforced, poverty-guaranteeing, American Dream-killing $7.25/hr. minimum wage already raised to a more humane $10 or $12 and even $15/hr. in many cities and states because Walker has said he does not even believe in the concept of a minimum wage, has called it "lame," defines $7.25/hr. as a livable wage and will not allow any increase.
Period.
Now you those of you whom the state now suspects of drug or alcohol abuse can go pee in a cup if you want a shot at food stamps or bare-minimum unemployment benefits while Walker heads to his Mansion's kitchen for a chef-prepared meal, then orders up state patrol drivers and a state airplane at the cost of hundreds of dollars an hour to deliver him to a fund-raising dinner or one of those no-media, by-invitation-only, taxpayer-subsidized 'listening sessions' cum-2018 re-election boosting events.
All the while failing to keep his signature 2010 and 2012 job-creating promises, yet traveling widely in the US and overseas on the taxpayer's tab to further a personal agenda - - no drug-testing required.
Props to the blogger who provided the details of Walker's speech which also explained why we didn't see Walker parading around Lambeau Field in the red shirt from the University he never attended, but whose budget he slashed and public-service mission he sneakily and dishonestly tried to erase.
Further thanks to the Capital Times for featuring the Florida report today about Wisconsin's Hypocrite-in-Chief.
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Exclusively.
But suppose other people, like taxpayers in a low-wage, slow-growth state are picking up that tab, and you've only held government jobs for the last 23 straight years - - basically your entire adult life - - and you enforce austerity on everyday people while showering other perks on CEO's and high earners, the last thing you'd expect to hear from such an inveterate public trough freeloader is a high-profile speech bashing government dependency.
But that is exactly what the afore-mentioned mansion occupant and Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker was doing Saturday, inveighing at a Koch brothers American Dream event near Disney World in Florida against government dependency.
And bragging about the thousands of poor people he had cut off food aid and touting the extra humiliation of a mandatory drug test Walker inserted into state rules which some aid applicants including those seeking unemployment insurance must pass before receiving subsistence benefits from taxpayers that pale in comparison to the millionaire lifestyle which tax dollars provide to him.
All in a state, mind you, which still has the state-enforced, poverty-guaranteeing, American Dream-killing $7.25/hr. minimum wage already raised to a more humane $10 or $12 and even $15/hr. in many cities and states because Walker has said he does not even believe in the concept of a minimum wage, has called it "lame," defines $7.25/hr. as a livable wage and will not allow any increase.
Period.
Now you those of you whom the state now suspects of drug or alcohol abuse can go pee in a cup if you want a shot at food stamps or bare-minimum unemployment benefits while Walker heads to his Mansion's kitchen for a chef-prepared meal, then orders up state patrol drivers and a state airplane at the cost of hundreds of dollars an hour to deliver him to a fund-raising dinner or one of those no-media, by-invitation-only, taxpayer-subsidized 'listening sessions' cum-2018 re-election boosting events.
All the while failing to keep his signature 2010 and 2012 job-creating promises, yet traveling widely in the US and overseas on the taxpayer's tab to further a personal agenda - - no drug-testing required.
Props to the blogger who provided the details of Walker's speech which also explained why we didn't see Walker parading around Lambeau Field in the red shirt from the University he never attended, but whose budget he slashed and public-service mission he sneakily and dishonestly tried to erase.
Further thanks to the Capital Times for featuring the Florida report today about Wisconsin's Hypocrite-in-Chief.
He will continue living off the public teat when he declines to run again in 2018 so that he can spend the next 2 years running for president again. From there, he is likely to win when the public finally sees-through the sham of clinton/bush duopoly. The democrats, just like when the made the son of a party bigwig with little or no real credentials made Jim Doyle Governor of Wisconsin, are sowing the seeds of another republican take-over of government.
ReplyDeleteThe media, knowing that Clinton is as good as any republican candidate and paying the Clinton's back for the media consolidation made possible by Bill Clinton's misnamed "Telecommunication Act", will make sure that Hillary and her record-setting unfavorables "wins" this year.
Then the same lying liar pundits will tell us that America needs a "working class" hero that "has a wife, 2 kids, and a Harley" while Scott Walker swills cheap beer doing photo-ops for the sham 2020 race.
The repugs are happy to take a pass this year and give Don the Con Trump media exposure to launch a new wing-nut propaganda network -- Trump TV -- and it will feature Roger Ailes and all of the most vile Faux News hosts. That network will collapse after the 2016 election.
Walker has earned an estimated $2.5 million in salary and per diem while in public office since 1993.
ReplyDeleteYou know what causes independence? Raising the minimum wage and allowing workers to organize and negotiate for wages and benefits. Know what else allows for independence having single-payer health care that doesnt make peopke beholden to their job or for-profit insurance companies.
ReplyDeleteWalker wants none of these things. In fact, he and his puppetmasters want the 99% of us to be seiously dependent... to a handful of oligarchs for all of our needs
I made a typo. Walker hasn't "earned" anything. He has taken salary for campaigning continuously.
ReplyDeleteEvery one that gets a government check should have to pass a drug test from the President on down and all state so called leaders, random testing and published results
ReplyDeletePlease have the 2018 democratic nominee for governor run on giving able body, non-custodian adults between the ages of 19 and 49 be given food stamps instead of working. Let's let Wisconsin voters decide.
ReplyDeleteHow about their kids? Screw them too, right? And they don't need hwalth care either, do they?
DeleteThe least that Walker could do for the rest of us who have gone backwards economically since he introduced his genius economic plans for the state is daily drink a glass of water from the 34 % of wells in Kewaunee County that are contaminated with cow crap. He's crapped all over the working folks in this state so he should at least drink the water so that he can get a taste of how we feel!
ReplyDeleteGee. If this was true and it mattered, wouldn't I be reading about it in my local newspaper or wouldn't it be on the radio or TV?
ReplyDeleteSometimes blogs present such an alternative reality. Who should I believe to report accurately?
Please stop showing that picture. Or put it up at the post office.
ReplyDeleteToo bad we don't have some type of "watchdog" reporter at the state's largest newspapers that would tell a story like this. I wonder why neither one has this type of investigative journalist as these types of reports are common at other major news desks.
ReplyDeleteTo Anonymous 1:51 and Anonymous 9:58: If you have more than two brain cells to rub together it is glaringly obvious why the corporate electronic and print media in Wisconsin fail to take Scott Walker and his band of sycophants in the legislature to task. It's called money and it's their lifeblood. For profit media loves the millions from campaign ads as well as ads from the large corporate interests that deposit the coin that operates the politicians. The 30 million spent on behalf of Walker during the recall was sweet pure profit. Paid media can't be trusted as it won't do anything to threaten its cash cow.
ReplyDelete