Ignoring his own election playbook, ALEC and Koch puppet Scott Walker, (Gov, R-Wis) has emerged from the shadows he prefers in an election year to call for a special legislative session to reform gut whatever remains of our social safety net. Maybe he sees the Blue Wave on the wall and realize it’s coming for him! Time to keep the base close by punishing “enemies”. Faux News will be pleased.
The GOP governor is pushing for a series of welfare bills, including requiring able-bodied parents of children on food stamps to work or get training to receive more than three months of benefits and increasing the existing work requirement for all able-bodied adults from 20 hours a week to 30.
This existing requirement — offered by Walker in 2013 — has led so far to about 3.5 recipients losing benefits for every one that secured a job through the program.
With jobs scarce because of the economic damage that the “I'll Create 250,000 Jobs (not) Governor has done, I guess kids can just go hungry if their folks can’t find work. It’s the Walker Way. Naturally, he finds a “nicer” way to present his drastic measures:
“With more people working in Wisconsin than ever before, we can’t afford to have anyone on the sidelines: we need everyone in the game,” Walker said in a statement. “We want to remove barriers to work and make it easier to get a job, while making sure public assistance is available for those who truly need it."
I’m almost surprised he didn’t use Paul Ryans’ metaphor describing them as laying in a hammock. I’d like to know what he considers “barriers to work” other than that he failed miserably to create any meaningful number of jobs. However, the only jobs Walker cares about are his own or the one he’d like to have in the future.
It’s also sad, but true that he’ll likely prevail in his legislative efforts to create more extreme poverty. Our very, very gerrymandered state gives him the majority of the State Senate and such as vast majority in the State Assembly that no Democrat even has to show up for quorum to exist.
2 days after losing a “safe” State Senate seat to a Democrat that took everyone by surprise, even Walker tweeted out that this is a “wake up call”. He may realize that it’s now or never to enact the rest of his heartless agenda. So he'll blow his dog whistle even louder to fire up the base since his name will be on the ballot again. As Hair Fuehrer would say; sad.
Walker normally goes silent in the year or two that follow an election so voters forget the vile things he’s done. Then he relies on dark money ads to promote him as a saint and savior as well as lie about any opponents. It has consistently worked for him.
He forgets, perhaps, that members of our military, working poor, disabled, and elderly rely on social programs such as housing and food stamps. He prefers that his voting base continue to believe the lie that it’s “urban” people of color that are the beneficiaries.
I hope this backfires on him like his simultaneous refusal to expand Medicaid and tightening of restrictions that woke up farmers and others who found themselves without access to medical care they previously qualified for.
Of course, after giving huge tax breaks to the rich and corporate along with paying back all those campaign donors, the Wisconsin Budget has a huge deficit that Walker has tried to hide by borrowing and slashing social programs. Getting rid of the rest won’t help him hide it and his economic failures in this state.
It’s going to be interesting to see Walker up front in an election year rather than skulking in the background while those dark money ads to his dirty work for him.
Stay tuned. It’s going to be a bumpy ride.
Update: Off Topic, but Pertinent
Looks like Snotty Walker isn’t the only one running scared. Paul Ryan released his fundraising totals for 2017 in what looks like an attempt to discourage his competition. I don’t care how much money he can claw in from those to take him to nightly fancy dinners with $300 bottles of wine — his numbers aren’t looking too good these days and he’s got stiff competition from a grassroots activist — Randy Brice (who posts here on DK under the IronStache moniker).