Slog

News & Arts

Line Out

Music & the City
at Night

« Cars Are Being Pushed Off the Road!… | SL Letter of the Day: »

Monday, April 23, 2012

2012 Scott Walker Fails as a Job Creator

Posted by Paul Constant on Mon, Apr 23, 2012 at 4:26 PM

States' rights advocates like to claim that each of the fifty states is like a laboratory, where politicians get to test their theories. If you agree with this laboratory idea, teabaggers are in some real trouble when it comes to job creation:

It seems that Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) might have been overreaching when he promised to create 250,000 new jobs in his first term. While Walker has spent the last twelve months slashing state budgets and busting unions, Wisconsinites have been dealing with the consequences. New data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics show that Walker’s state saw the largest decrease in jobs over the last year, dropping nearly a full percentage point

That means Walker is responsible for "the largest over-the-year percentage decrease" in the United States last year. Combine that with Mitt Romney's abysmal record as a job creator—Massachusetts was 47th in job creation in the US while he was governor—and it looks like those Republican job creation talking points might not be as sound as conservatives would like to believe. Cutting budgets and kneecapping unions so that corporations and the wealthy can pull in ever-greater profits, it turns out, don't make for an infallible job-creating engine.

FacebookShare

Comments (11) RSS

Oldest First Unregistered On Registered On Add a comment

I think Wisconsin's dismal employment numbers have more to do with long term economic trends and population shifts than with anything Gov Walker did or didn't do. Still, he doesn't seem to have turned things around either.

Posted by Ken Mehlman on April 23, 2012 at 4:36 PM

It's not about results, it's about purity.

Posted by dwightmoodyforgetsthings

on April 23, 2012 at 4:51 PM

Wait, so you're saying that eliminating jobs doesn't create jobs?

Posted by Proteus on April 23, 2012 at 4:58 PM

Those Marxist liberal socialist labor statistics are just made up by socialist Marxist liberals in the government controlled by socialist liberal Marxist Barack Hussein Obama #Muslim!!!#!

Did I mention atheist?

Posted by ScrawnyKayaker on April 23, 2012 at 5:42 PM

What? You mean the higher-than-most-states rate of job creation in Massachusetts isn't in spite of our liberal governor and legislature and union-friendly environment? Who knew?

Posted by Doctor L on April 23, 2012 at 6:20 PM

@1 - Well, he did cancel a train line from Milwaukee to Madison that was already under construction because he didn't want to take the money the Federal Government was handing out to build it. (Other states got the money instead, so he didn't actually save any federal dollars with his "principled" stance.) That would have employed up to 5000 people during the construction. Also, he created prohibitive regulations on wind farms that resulted in 12 projects being cancelled, resulting in 1000 jobs lost.

Those are a drop in the bucket, sure, but both were done solely for ideological reasons that actually harmed Wisconsin's economy and infrastructure.

Posted by Free Lunch on April 23, 2012 at 6:25 PM

The weird thing is that no one in office seems to understand how jobs are created.

It isn't one (or a few) rich people deciding to "give" jobs to the unemployed masses. What are their employees going to make that can be sold to the rest of the masses?

Unless you're talking butlers and a rich guy only needs so many butlers.

Jobs happen when the masses have enough money to spend on food / clothes / shelter / luxuries. Even if there isn't a rich guy to "create" the jobs.

Posted by fairly.unbalanced on April 23, 2012 at 6:54 PM

Only imbecils and liars claim that the rich take their money and create jobs with it.

Posted by mubhappy on April 23, 2012 at 7:04 PM

@7 The idea that you can't allow consumer demand to collapse during a recession was the theory behind the Obama stimulus package. I'd say it worked out pretty well.

Posted by Ken Mehlman on April 23, 2012 at 7:14 PM

Anyone who thinks republicans were sincere about "creating jobs" is an idiot.

Politicians care about one thing only: Power.

Politicians vie for power, and once given, they use it to give authority, privilege, and wealth to their corporate masters.

That is the one and only thing politicians exist for.

All this talk about "job creation" is a sideshow meant as a distraction. And apparently, it works like a charm too.

Posted by Urgutha Forka on April 23, 2012 at 9:01 PM

AGH YES!! Thank you and let's please continue to emphasize this. During the campaign Walker's main selling point was his promise to create 250000 jobs in Wisconsin (and to kill the high speed rail project... sigh) ... once he got into office it was all about tax cuts for corporations and campaign donors, fantastic promotions/raises for his cronies, and stripping union rights. Bait and switch.

I hope this serves as an example so that people stop falling for such garbage. We can recall him in Wisco and limit the damage, but not every state has that option. Elect the tea party once and you may be stuck with them for a full term, while they redraw legislative districts and pass voter suppression measures and do everything else they can to put their political rivals at a disadvantage and keep their own power.

Posted by Nitidiuscula on April 23, 2012 at 11:33 PM