Right-wing GOP WI Gov. and habitual self-promoting propagandist Scott Walker
has spun and tweeted some cherry-picked numbers into alternative facts and half-baked re-election campaign claims that need some sunlight and correction.
* For example, Walker says the state's workforce is the largest in Wisconsin history.
Well, so is the state's population, and yet Wisconsin under Walker:
* Regularly ranks in the bottom third for job growth.
* Never came close after his more than six years in office to creating the 250,000 new private-sector jobs he repeatedly promised to create after a mere four - - more about that, here.
* Has kept the minimum hourly wage frozen at a rock bottom $7.25, added jobs that are principally in low-wage categories, so no surprise that Wisconsin under Walker led the country in loss of middle-class incomes.
Additionally:
* Walker says the state is in the top ten for fully-funded pension systems.
The Wisconsin pension system is a known, carefully-constructed national success he inherited, belongs to the workers and retirees who contribute to it and has nothing to do with his ideology or handiwork.
* He again touts a business opinion survey of CEO magazine readers who ranked Wisconsin as a top ten state for doing business, but does not mention a broader, data-driven survey for business start-up activity which ranked Wisconsin dead last among the states for the third years in a row, as I noted.
* He also says Wisconsin's borrowing for highways is the lowest in years, but does not mention that because he has long championed overspending on new lanes and major projects, the condition of Wisconsin's roads is rated second-worst nationally, as I have also reported.
Also nowhere on Walker's list:
* Our state's 12th-from-the-bottom ranking on a measure of well-water contamination.
* Our 7th from the bottom ranking nationally for attracting new residents with college degrees, a measure of the so-called "brain-gain' index.
Maybe they've heard about the bad water. Or the middling-to-crummy job market. Or the measurable disinterest in entrepreneurship.
Or Walker's hard-right obsession with blocking ballot box access, using the poor as campaign cudgels, cutting science and climate change information from state agencies and handing over groundwater, wetlands, woodlands and clean air to private interests to whom quality of life is just another commodity to sell to the highest bidder.
These inequities, omissions, disparities, and partisan sleights-of-hand are better explained by additional numbers Walker never discuses - - his PolitiFact truth-telling ratings.
Currently, his vetted statements are rated at 13% True, a combined 29% False or Pants on Fire, with the rest somewhere in between.
* For example, Walker says the state's workforce is the largest in Wisconsin history.
Well, so is the state's population, and yet Wisconsin under Walker:
* Regularly ranks in the bottom third for job growth.
* Never came close after his more than six years in office to creating the 250,000 new private-sector jobs he repeatedly promised to create after a mere four - - more about that, here.
* Has kept the minimum hourly wage frozen at a rock bottom $7.25, added jobs that are principally in low-wage categories, so no surprise that Wisconsin under Walker led the country in loss of middle-class incomes.
Additionally:
* Walker says the state is in the top ten for fully-funded pension systems.
The Wisconsin pension system is a known, carefully-constructed national success he inherited, belongs to the workers and retirees who contribute to it and has nothing to do with his ideology or handiwork.
* He again touts a business opinion survey of CEO magazine readers who ranked Wisconsin as a top ten state for doing business, but does not mention a broader, data-driven survey for business start-up activity which ranked Wisconsin dead last among the states for the third years in a row, as I noted.
* He also says Wisconsin's borrowing for highways is the lowest in years, but does not mention that because he has long championed overspending on new lanes and major projects, the condition of Wisconsin's roads is rated second-worst nationally, as I have also reported.
Also nowhere on Walker's list:
* Our state's 12th-from-the-bottom ranking on a measure of well-water contamination.
* Our 7th from the bottom ranking nationally for attracting new residents with college degrees, a measure of the so-called "brain-gain' index.
Maybe they've heard about the bad water. Or the middling-to-crummy job market. Or the measurable disinterest in entrepreneurship.
Or Walker's hard-right obsession with blocking ballot box access, using the poor as campaign cudgels, cutting science and climate change information from state agencies and handing over groundwater, wetlands, woodlands and clean air to private interests to whom quality of life is just another commodity to sell to the highest bidder.
These inequities, omissions, disparities, and partisan sleights-of-hand are better explained by additional numbers Walker never discuses - - his PolitiFact truth-telling ratings.
Currently, his vetted statements are rated at 13% True, a combined 29% False or Pants on Fire, with the rest somewhere in between.
Perhaps they taught that Math the Senior of College. Wait: He didn't go after his senior year. Also, if you tell lies over and over they become the truth.
ReplyDelete> “Our 44th-worst ranking nationally for attracting new residents with college degrees....”
ReplyDeleteI suspect this is not what you meant to say. It translates as “7th-best”. Are we 44th from the head or the tail of the pack?
@ Raven: I cleaned that up. Thanks.
ReplyDelete