Scott Walker famously ran on creating 250,000 jobs, but things haven't turned out as planned. Anyone who lives here knows that things have been getting worse since his radical, divisive, austerity-on-steroids budget was enacted. But that hasn't stopped Walker from telling us how great things are, including his recent claim that his administration has created "just under 100,000 jobs".
Problem is, that number is as phony as a $4 bill, and even Politifact is noticing. In today's Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, Politifact shines a harsh light on Walker's ridiculous numbers and spanks him with a pants on fire rating:
During the 2012 recall election, Walker touted about 33,000 new jobs.
So, where did a figure of nearly 100,000 come from?
That’s the number Walker cited Dec. 12, 2012 in response to questions at a workforce development event in Pewaukee, when he said he thought he still could reach 250,000.
"We're just under 100,000" jobs, he said. "It's going to be tough, no doubt about it."
Yes, Scotty, it's going to be tough to spin your way out of this one. You tore our state apart when you shoved your stealth agenda down our throats, and the results are pathetic. And even your own people aren't buying your bullshit:
However, several within his own administration, including his primary spokesman, have said that is the wrong way to measure jobs -- you can’t combine partial and full year data sets. As one aide said: It would be "misrepresenting the truth."
By his administration’s own yardstick, his statement is false. We think it’s ridiculous to -- after private admonitions -- publicly present it this way.
So at least for one day I can stop ragging on Polifact, which generallly annoys me to no end. It appears they did some math and reported the findings without falling back to their false equivalency comfort zone.
As for Walker, he will continue to lie and cook the books. It's what he does best, and it's worked wonderfully for him in the past. Phony numbers and $35 million won him the recall, and there's a lot more cash where that came from. Meanwhile, the State Senate will soon revert to GOP control, and the crazy is about to be unleashed. Through the power of secret gerrymandering comes FitzWalkerstan 2.0: even scarier than the original.