The Joint Finance Committee of the Republican-controlled Wisconsin Legislature has agreed to a set of changes to the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation (WEDC), including a provision to fire its Chairman of the Board - Governor Scott Walker.
The secretive and scandal-plagued WEDC, conceived by Walker as a replacement for the state's commerce department and organized four years ago as a "public/private" corporation, was supposed to be the flagship agency to help Walker fulfill his 2010 campaign promise of 250,000 new, private-sector jobs in his first term.
Not only has Walker failed on his jobs promise (the state only added about 129,000 new jobs during Walker's first term), his pet agency has seen a number of CEO's come and go after a continual lack of results and accountability.
The latest setback for WEDC was the release of a report by the non-partisan Legislative Audit Bureau that "found WEDC hasn't tracked job creation or complied with state law."
According the a report in the Capital Times, Democratic State Senator Jon Erpenbach says of Walker:
"His party has fired him. Republicans are removing him as chairman of the board....In the end, I'm shocked. I'm surprised. I'm happy that the Republicans have removed the governor from the board. Can you imagine him in Iowa, getting questions from reporters — why were you fired from your job as chairman of the board?"
In attempting to rebut the claim that Walker was fired, Republicans on the committee seemed to validate what critics of WEDC have been saying for years, that the agency is nothing more than an extension of Walker's political machine, charged with handing out refunds disguised as "loans" to Walker's campaign donors.
But as the committee started its debate, co-chair Sen. Alberta Darling, R-River Falls, pushed back against his statements.
"We did not fire the governor from the WEDC board," Darling said. "The governor asked to be removed from the board ... so the climate on the board would be more in line with making decisions that are in the best interest of the economy, jobs and the future of Wisconsin."
Darling said whenever the governor attended WEDC meetings, it resulted in a "tit-for-tat" between Walker and elected officials and prevented productivity.
"This is about depoliticizing the state's economic development corporation," said co-chair Rep. John Nygren, R-Marinette.
That's quite an admission by the Republican monsters on the Joint Finance Committee. I'm sure they hope to get this behind them soon so they can go back to their regular business of gutting public education, humiliating and starving people who need food assistance, polluting Wisconsin's air and water, and restricting women's control over their own bodies.
One thing is clear. WEDC was a bad idea from the start. Shut it down.
