Yes, A$$-covering is what I wanted to write, but I wanted to keep the title clean.
Un-be-friggin-lievable!
The Milwaukee Journal Sentinal, the Republican loving newspaper of the states largest city and most widely read of all the of corporate media in FitzWalkerStan has been ignoring Scott Walkers faults and failings for his entire politicial career and serving as virtual stenographers of his talking points. However now that Wisconsin dropped from 11th in jobs under Democratic Governor Jim Doyle to a dismal 45th under Scott Walker in 2 years, they seem to feel the need to take the heat off of him and his jobs record in an editorial today.
It's Gov. Scott Walker's fault.
No, wait, it's those rabble-rousers who organized the recall elections. It's their fault - they created the uncertainty that is causing the Wisconsin economy to slow-walk.
Whoever is to blame, "Wisconsin is falling behind," Abdur Chowdhury, an economics professor at Marquette University, told the Journal Sentinel last week.
He's right. The state ranked 44th out of the 50 states in private-sector job creation in the 12 months from September 2011 to September 2012, according to the most recent statistics.
But this political finger-pointing is pointless. Not that Walker doesn't deserve responsibility - he's the governor. But the problems facing the state's economy go far beyond the power of a single person to solve.
(emphasis mine)
They mumble about the many factors that go into an economy and conclude
But the real answer goes well beyond politics.
Really?
We were doing quite well in the state even after the greed of Wall Street and the Banksters took down our economy. Unemployment remained fairly low compared to other states after the crash and when Scott Walker took office on the promise of jobs, jobs, jobs, we wer #11 in the country in new jobs.
Scott Walker got rid of a lot of state employees when he took office. Then he and his Republican majority rammed through Act 10 and his budget which ended public employee collective bargaining and led to an unprecidented exodous of pulbic employees through retirement or resignation, massively cut state shared revenue with municipalities leading to even more downsizing of public employees, took a large percentage of the remaining public employees take home pay to "pay for" their benefits (wages which were already low after decades of giving up wage increases in order to maintain those benefits), and did it all without a single thought to the ramifications of those actions.
I'm sure his thoughts were confined to imagining how big of a Superstar Governor he would be in the eyes of his donors, supporters, and fellow ideologues or, perhaps, how long he could gloat over totally destroying his enemies, public employees and their unions. Or maybe he thought about how many Republicans he could stuff into every elected office in the state now that public employee unions wouldn't be around to support their opponents?
Sadly, anyone with a partially functioning brain would have seen that causing so much unemployment among public employees and stripping such a large amount from the paychecks of those who remained would have a deep impact on the economy. But either Scott Walker or his aides and associates never gave it a thought or, perhaps, they just didn't care.
Unemployed people, poor people, and folks who have had a large chunk of money taken out of their paychecks don't spend money unless they absolutely have to. It's down to the bare essentials for them. Minimum groceries, rent/mortgage, and basic utilities are the norm. They don't eat out, go to movies, take vacations, or drive unless necessary. Those money conservation methods spell doom for an economy.
Grocery stores sell a lot of beans and noodles, but not much steak; entertainment venues and restaurants are left with fewer customers; gas stations see less sales as driving is curtailed; and retail stores see less sales. In Madison, where the majority of state employees live, there are a lot of vacant buildings and even more people unemployed by those closings. It didn't just happen all by itself.
Yes, Scott Walker and his Republican majority are to blame. And anyone who can't see that is either blind or they have their eyes closed. And our fawning corporate media is working hard to pull the blinders over our eyes, too.
Be alert and aware. The Scott Walker austerity (for us) agenda is coming for us all. Corporations and the wealthy, of course, will be swimming in tax breaks and subsidies, as well as no accountability or responsibility for their actions.
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PS: What makes this even worse is that the workers newspaper in Milwaukee, The Labor Press, just sent out their last issue. It used to be sent weekly, for free, to all union members in the Milwaukee area, but dropped to monthly. It was the only way to reach union members in the area in a single swoop to pass along labor news, factual information about legislation, and labor endorsements.
It's yet another victim of Scott Walker. The devastating loss of public employees and the financial support of their now defunct unions made it impossible to continue operation.
I'm going to miss reading it.
RIP.
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MORE: Bwahahaha Edition: Scott Walker just gets more shameless in his latest fundraising appeal:
Gov. Scott Walker likes to tell people and politicians not to "personalize your differences."
"Over the years, I passed that on to many others with the simple reminder that your opponent today may be your ally tomorrow" Walker said in his state of the state address.
But in his latest fundraising letter, the first-term Republican governor accuses his Democratic opponents of doing just that by making their fight with him "personal." Walker hits up donors for his 2014 re-election bid in the letter, making no mention of his presidential aspirations.
"Our rivals are gearing up with their usual bad ideas and shameless TV attacks," writes Walker, who is penning a memoir entitled "Unintimidated." "They are bitter and vengeful and defeating me is personal for them."
He goes on begging for money because vast amounts of "Big Government Union" and "out of state liberal" money will "bankroll" his opposition. Naturally, he makes no mention of the Koch Brothers, Americans for (the Kochs) Prosperity, Club for Growth, MacGiver Institute, Bradley Foundation, tax-hating billionaires, and others who will flood money into Wisconsin to prop up their favorite boy. Nor does he mention that he's crushed unions in Wisconsin to the point that their only labor newspaper shut their doors today.
Someone please hand Snotty a tissue before his phoney crocodile tears ruin the carpet.
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