The state partnered with the Wisconsin Broadcasters Association to produce and distribute brief radio address once a week. Audio files and a written transcript of this radio address can be accessed on http://www.wi-broadcasters.org and http://walker.wi.gov/Weekly-Radio-Addresses. To download an mp3 file, you can right click the radio address link and click “save link as.”
Here is the transcript from Thursday’s address, titled Growth in Wisconsin Jobs.
Hi, this is Scott Walker.
Wisconsin’s economy is improving.
Recently, the Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development (DWD) sent federal government actual jobs data compiled from unemployment insurance reports submitted by nearly every business in Wisconsin. The actual jobs count showed that Wisconsin added 37,464 private-sector jobs from March of last year to March of this year. There was also good news for important economic sectors such as manufacturing, where more than 12,000 new jobs have been added. Beyond the raw jobs numbers, the data revealed other positive indicators, which showed that overall wages grew by more than 7 percent.
Last year, I indicated I will track job growth by the actual job count data instead of other statistics like the monthly job estimates, because the job count is widely regarded as more accurate. We will continue using this measurement as we evaluate the overall strength of Wisconsin’s economy in the future.
Moving forward, I will continue to focus on growing Wisconsin jobs for workers and for families.
A) balanced the budget without raising taxes, thereby making Wisconsin more attractive to business looking to build/expand. B) Passed legislation that allows local governments to balance their budget without raising taxes thereby making those communities more attractive to businesses looking to build/expand. C) Passed legislation giving businesses incentives to hire. D) Passed legislation giving business incentives to move to Wisconsin.
http://www.kiplinger.com/businessresource/forecast/archive/which-states-have-the-jobs.html
There are two main things to judge Walker on- the budget and jobs. He did a fine job with the budget, and he failed miserably at creating jobs. 50% right is an F. Wisconsin is in the bottom 10% of all states on job creation right now. For one thing he rejected around 2billion$ in stimulus money that would have created countless jobs and got things moving here again. We still have to repay the 2billion, we just didn't receive it. Say what you will about the railroads, but even $2billion wasted would have had benefits so long as the money was spend in Wisconsin and not Illiniois or California where it ended up. We will be repaying that money for a generation, and were denied any possible benefit in having received it. Legislation giving businesses incentive to hire? What exactly is that and how is it helping? Business only hire when there is a justifiable need to do so. I own 2 businesses and will certainly not hire anyone due to any government incentive. I will hire someone when there is enough new work coming in where my existing staff can't handle it, regardless of whatever that "incentive" to hire may be. Legislation isn't going to make anyone to come here either. They will come when there is demand for their service (i.e. employed people are buying from them).
Say you've been part unemployed for a while and improving the situation has been beyond your control. Then the city decides to get you working again by paying you to $200,000 to build a swimming pool in your own yard. You get to keep the pool, plus $100k of the 200 goes to you for your labor, but you're going to have to pay $500 a year to maintain it after it's built. They also tell you that you're on the hook for it eventually, but it's going to be a while and nobody has decided yet at what point you're going to have to pay for it. You can either take the $200k to regain your employment and build the pool and keep it, or you can reject it, stay partially unemployed and the money goes to build a pool for somebody in Mequon instead. But you're still on the hook for paying it back at some unnamed date in the future, just the same as if they paid you and you build it yourself in your own yard. Walker rejected that money and you still have to pay it back... But you just bought a pool for somebody else and they got paid the $100k in labor to install it. Your situation is worse now isn't it? People keep getting dumber. Politicians aren't dumb, but they're going to keep doing what they have to, to keep the dumb people voting for them.
Second, Walker didn't cut spending. His budget is about 8% higher than Doyle's. The difference is he took $2 billion from teachers (which cuts available discretionary dollars from the state's economy) and he gave that same amount to road builders, which will literally be poured on the ground in a new highway that will get people from Milwaukee to Lambau Field ten minutes faster. Third, Walker's job numbers lag behind not only the nation but the region. Obama's economy has created more jobs in 4 years than Bush's did in 8. Minnesota, Michigan, Illinois, and Iowa have all kept on pace with the nation. At best, Walker's divisiveness has created the disparity, but it's likely also his budget. Killing the train was indeed politically and ideologically motivated, as has been virtually everything Walker has done. Mississippi and other states behaved similarly during the Civil Rights era, and have lagged behind culturally and economically ever since. If you want to be proud and ignorant and poor, please just move there and leave Wisconsin be. This race to the bottom serves nobody.
Remember the wave of hiring that he predicted would happen after the uncertainty of the recall was over with? Since then we have lost about 20,000 more jobs and in June alone the state if WI accounted for nearly a third of the entire country's job losses. Right now the state is badly in need of a special session to work on job creation, and Democrats are waiting to sit down at the table, but where is Walker? Everywhere BUT Wisconsin these days, and he is not going to call a special jobs session because he DOES NOT want to work with the Democrats who now hold the senate.
They can never be trusted
I would hope that if rights you valued were overturned without opportunity to comment or respond, you would protest as heartily and as peacefully.
A lot was taken from workers and poor people, and more tax breaks for the rich. It will be worth the tough medicine if we see 250k jobs. So, we wait.
As for the post recall hiring wave, do you have any clue how jobs are created?
The race to the bottom is being won by states like Illinois and California, that seem to have taken the opposite path Wisconsin did. The "go move there" statement is just plain childish.