Wisconsin Governor has been "punting" (his word) on a lot on Tough Questions lately.
Questions like "What does the Governor think about Evolution?"
Or, does he agree with Rudy Giuliani's recent assessments of the President?
Maybe he needs a "permission slip" from his Billionaire backers [$108,000] -- before he can speak his own mind.
Scott Walker Is King of Kochworld
The Wisconsin governor's strong ties to Koch activists and donors could prove lucrative if he runs for president.
by Julie Bykowicz, bloomberg.com -- Feb 17, 2015
[...]
Meanwhile, Koch Industries began to turn on the cash spigots. In July 2010, the first of two contributions from Koch Industries' political action committee arrived in Walker's campaign coffers. The $43,000 it ultimately gave him doesn't sound like much, but it was his largest out-of-state contribution.
The company has also been a top donor to the Republican Governors Association, and that group spent $5 million attacking Walker's Democratic opponent, Tom Barrett, in a torrent of 2.9 million mailers and series of eight different television ads.
[...]
“We're helping him, as we should,” David Koch told the Palm Beach Post in February 2012. “What Scott Walker is doing with the public unions in Wisconsin is critically important. He's an impressive guy, and he's very courageous.”
[...]
Courageous enough to 'punt on 3rd down'.
Or maybe, Scott Walker needs a "boiler plate" from ALEC -- before he can run his state's economic opportunities, even further into the conservative "privatization" ground.
Scott Walker Pushes ALEC 'Right to Work' Bill, Divide and Conquer Comes Full Circle
by Mary Bottari, huffingtonpost.com -- Feb 22, 2015
[...]
On Friday, Wisconsin GOP leaders announced they would have an "extraordinary session" to ram through union-busting "right to work" legislation. CMD/PRwatch quickly noted that the bill is taken almost word-for-word from the Koch corporate bill mill known as the American Legislative Exchange Council known as "ALEC." (See CMD's side-by side here.)
[...]
Governor Walker's relationship with the billionaire Koch industrialists and one of the organizations they bankroll -- ALEC -- dates back to the 1990s. As a state legislator from 1993-2002, Walker rubbed shoulders with Koch Industries lobbyists who serve on ALEC's; corporate board and its task forces. In his first year in legislative office, Walker sponsored "Right to Work" legislation (1993 SB 459), followed by "Paycheck Protection" (1997 AB 624), and "Truth in Sentencing" (1997 AB 351), all parts of the ALEC lobbying agenda. He also pushed ALEC bills to privatize the state's prison system (1997 AB 634, 1999 AB 176 and AB 519); ALEC was funded by the for-profit prison industry, of course. He co-sponsored an ALEC bill (1997 AB 745) that would have prohibited all state agencies -- including universities -- from providing goods and services that could be procured from the private-sector, with rare exceptions.
Then, as Milwaukee County Executive, Walker pursued an aggressive privatization agenda, another part of the ALEC wish list. In 2009, he even manufactured a budget crisis to fire the unionized county courthouse security workers and hire the scandal-plagued British corporation Wackenhut, which was also a funder of ALEC. After this move was reversed by a court arbitrator, the county had to rehire the workers and foot the bill for back pay, costing taxpayers a small fortune.
[...]
In Koch-Walker-ALEC's America -- the "right to work" means “Labor organizations”
do not have a right to organize,
collectively.
As Walker's Billionaire Backer puts it:
“What Scott Walker is doing with the public unions in Wisconsin is critically important.”
-- David Koch
Or as any worker trapped on that 'Race to the Bottom' treadmill, can attest:
In Walker's America: The "right to work" means 'the right to work -- for LESS!'