When he ran for governor in 2010, then-candidate Scott Walker promised he’d create 250,000 jobs in his first term if elected governor. It’s been well documented that during his first term in office Gov. Walker has failed to fulfill his promise to create 250,000 jobs, but a damning new report by PR Watch crystallizes how much of a failure Scott Walker’s Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation (WEDC) has been when it comes to creating jobs in Wisconsin (emphasis added).
At the end of 2013, WEDC told the Legislature and the public it had “impacted” 37,313 jobs. No actuals were included in the report to the Legislature, but its official database includes documentation for 4,796 “actual” jobs.
To create those jobs over a two-year period, some $203 million in taxpayer money went out the door in grants, loans and bonding authority.
So there you have it. The number of new jobs WEDC can credibly document is not 250,000; it is not 50,000; it is not 37,000. Walker’s official jobs database can document only 5,840 “actual” jobs reported to be created by firms for FY 2012 and FY 2013. Note that these are jobs created through the efforts of WEDC, and the numbers are separate from the state’s job numbers reported monthly and quarterly by the federal government.
It’s worth remembering that Scott Walker and his Republican lackeys in the legislature disbanded Wisconsin’s Department of Commerce and created the public-private hybrid WEDC in order to fulfill Walker’s job creation promise, but to date it has cost Wisconsin taxpayers $42,326 per job created by Scott Walker’s WEDC.
That’s a pretty shocking number, and it seems to me to undermine Scott Walker’s claim to be fiscally responsible with taxpayer dollars.
Dismal. Especially when you consider that sand and other mining companies have been beating the door down taking advantage of the exceptional natural resources in Wisconsin–which, BTW Walker and minions have left wide open for them.
Quite a difference between BLS FY2012-13 job creation stats, which were poor by national standards, and the miniscule actual job numbers you can credit WEDC with. Considering Scott Walker made WEDC to be his job creation centerpiece, taxpayers should surely be enraged at the expense made for outcome of very few jobs paying jobs created.
In exchange for the financial aid of taxpayer dollars, business had to make promises for creating a certain number of jobs. What are “jobs impacted”? Is any unlawful activity occuring when promises aren’t kept? You have to wonder if Walker and WEDC may be promoting a fraud upon Wisconsin taxpayers. And just what are the political considerations involved when WEDC and a business work out a deal between themselves?
Even Gov. Jim Doyle created over 34,000 new jobs as governor. Walkrr supporting assholes cannot argue facts and here are the facts! http://dwd.wisconsin.gov/dwd/newsreleases/2014/unemployment/140717_june_state.pdf