Scott Walker has a vision to recreate the state bureaucracy in Madison. Normally I fancy myself a pretty forward-thinking kind of guy who appreciates outside-the-box approaches to government. But when the guy having the vision is a college drop-out whose spent his entire adult life shilling for this corporate masters, that’s when I start to worry. Which brings us to Scott Walker’s plans for the Wisconsin Department of Commerce.
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Walker intends to completely shut down the Department of Commerce and replace it with something he calls the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation. Walker’s complaint about the Department of Commerce is that it’s not “nimble” enough to meet the needs of corporations in the state. Of course, anything short of a return to the glory days of laissez-faire non-regulation is going to unacceptable and the idea that the Department of Commerce is also supposed to protect the interests of the people of Wisconsin would be just plain silly.
This part of Walker’s plan is already in effect, courtesy of the “Wham Bam, Thank You Ma’am” special session of the General Assembly that took place in January. The Department of Commerce is scheduled to fade into the sunset as of July 1.
The Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation is going to the nimble (and lithe and even
supple) replacement for the Department of Commerce. The WEDC will have a twelve-member Board of Directors and a Chairman. The Chairman will be Scott Walker, who has never actually held a job in the private sector and consequently would not how to create a private sector job, but not to worry. You see, as Chairman, the governor will have the power to appoint and dismiss six of the twelve members of the Board from among the business leaders in Wisconsin.
So counting is own vote, Scott Walker will have unchallenged control of the WEDC. And those other members he gets to appoint? If you think Walker won’t appoint David Koch (or one of his lackeys) to serve on the Board, then as the governor likes to say, “You haven’t been paying attention.”
Horrified yet? It gets worse.
The WEDC is going to have a budget north of $100 million to promote economic development in the State of Wisconsin, a budget that can be supplemented by private sector grants. So when Koch Industries wants to break a union at one of its facilities in the state, they can simply made a “grant” to the WEDC and have Scooter and his friends do it for them. The Corporation can also propose legislation to the General Assembly, so Koch Industries can simply provide financial support (read: bribes) to the WEDC to make sure industry-friendly legislation gets a hearing in Madison.
And what of the nearly 400 state employees who used to work for the Department of Commerce? Fired, and their replacements will be hired by the Corporation and will NOT be state employees any more, meaning that the governor will have 400 patronage jobs to dole out to his political supporters without all those pesky regulations getting in the way.
Make no mistake about it. The WEDC is going to provide a multi-million dollar sledge hammer to big business to so they can continue to pound organized labor and pretty much anybody who gets in their way. Did I mention that the legislation to create the WEDC specifically exempts it from following any environmental regulations passed by the General Assembly? It does. And just as soon as the governor smashes the public sector unions, he and the WEDC can get to work on those in the private sector.
So if you’re casting about for another reason to oppose the Walker Administration, you may have this one with my compliments.