Categories: Featured News

Scott Walker Tries to Save His Job By Copying Obama

Last updated on February 8th, 2013 at 02:21 am


While Walker runs around the country patting himself on the back for record job losses and making Wisconsin a worse state than it was when he took office for a variety of reasons, he is also deep in the throes of implementing an Obama-like agenda in order to get re-elected.

This is something Republicans definitely don’t want to talk about, because not only does it prove that they know that the way to create jobs is precisely what the President has been trying to get passed for the last three years, but it is also an admission that they were never trying to create jobs with their austerity measures.

Most egregiously, Walker has promised the city of Milwaukee (where he was last seen as County Executive before he hauled away all of the records on his way to the Governor’s mansion) $100 million of taxpayer money in order to create these jobs, in a move that even Forbes labeled, “Scott Walker Using $100 Million Of Taxpayer Money To Fight Off Recall?”

Vote for Scott and he’ll give you $100 million of taxpayer money and he promises he’s not coming for the unions! It’s worth noting that Walker’s promise of spending money he claimed the state didn’t have last month is aimed right at his Democratic challenger in the recall, Tom Barrett, who is the mayor of Milwaukee.

As Rick Ungar points out in Forbes, Walker blames Barrett for the state of Milwaukee, and yet, “While the city has the ability to create incentives, via local tax credits and other such devices, the ability to make the types of investments that can help lift areas of the city out of poverty rests with the county and the state governments.”

The county, eh? That would be County Executive Scott Walker who held the post for ten years before using taxpayer money to further his campaign for governor, and that was after he dropped out of college after being found guilty of campaign fraud. Speaking of Walker’s ethics, immunity has been granted to yet another player in the John Doe criminal investigation centering around Walker’s campaign for Governor. Perspective can be so illuminating when one is sucking on the talking points of a serial shill.

Oh, shared sacrifices, look what you have done for the Walker recall campaign! Scott Walker has found $100 million dollars of taxypayer to create a better image for himself, even as he continues to cut funding for social programs to the point where the feds had to cut off Walker’s Hunger Games.

Yes, 17,000 people are losing Medicaid and 30,000 will have to pay more money in Wisconsin but Scott Walker has found millions to rescue himself from his bad policies. So much for the poor and disabled of Wisconsin. I’m sure they’ll be more than happy to give up their meager Medicaid benefits in order to assist Walker with his recall election. They’re probably just grateful those evil feds stepped in to stop Walker from his original plan, which was to cut off 65,000 people, including 29,000 children. This is the pro-life Governor’s policies in action.

Remember when Walker was against all of Obama’s ideas? Well, now that he needs to save his hide, he’s seeking quick refuge in the President’s ideas for economic health. Remember when Walker refused stimulus money for high speed rail but took federal money to help the existing rail, a move that benefited one of his campaign donors who has since pleaded guilty to felony counts of campaign law violations? Now Walker is all for revitalizing transportation.

Rick Ungar wrote:

The effort kicked off ten days ago when, after fifteen months in the Governor’s chair where Walker has consistently cried poverty in the state budget as the rational for his many controversial moves, the Governor miraculously came up with $100 million to fund economic development in Milwaukee’s poorest areas—money Walker claims will come from the Wisconsin Housing and Economic Development Board.

Even more surprising is the astonishing resemblance between the Walker scheme and the series of measures put forth by President Obama as the Governor’s proposal involves reoccupying foreclosed and vacant properties while making loans and venture capital money available to small businesses and industrial developers.

Yes, it’s true. When Republicans need to save their behinds and finally create a few jobs, they adopt President Obama’s plans; the very same plans they have been relentlessly opposing, even as data shows President Obama’s economic policies beating the austerity policies of the UK and the Euro zone.

Lest anyone remain confused as to the real agenda behind Walker’s huge corporate giveaways and drastic, draconian cuts for the most vulnerable of his constituents, the Walker video from a documentary “As Goes Janesville” in which he admits that he’s going to use his budget bill to bust unions via “divide and conquer” tactics also outs Walker’s agenda to turn Wisconsin into a “right to work” for less state.

Walker has denied that he had any such agenda, and yet here he is on tape talking to $500,000 Walker campaign contributor Diane Hendricks, owner of ABC Supply in Beloit, admitting that the first step toward being a right to work state is using divide and conquer strategies against the unions.

Hendricks asks the Governor if “we’ll ever get to be a completely red state and work on these unions” and become a “right-to-work” state.

Walker leans in conspiratorially in order to share that he’s going to start just that with his budget repair bill. “The first step is, we’re going to deal with collective bargaining for all public employee unions, because you use divide and conquer.”

Hendricks let’s a sly, Cheshire cat smile speak for her in response. After all, she’s running 500 ABC building supply stores nationwide and cheap, unrepresented labor means more profit for her. ALEC’s finally got their corporate tool and his name is Scott Walker. This clip proves that when Scott Walker tells voters his agenda, he’s not being honest. This, of course, has been obvious to anyone paying attention, but now it’s right there, on video. No more duck and dodge.

Watch here:

Walker has only fallen to his knees and admitted that spending on infrastructure and loosening credit is the way to go after his attempt to blame the protesters for his bad policies failed.

Republicans know that their policies don’t create jobs. Republicans know that union busting doesn’t create good jobs for the people. Republicans know that they are, in fact, corporate shills for ALEC and the Koch Brothers. The question is, do the American people get it?

Scott Walker is using Obama’s ideas to save his hide in Wisconsin, the same ideas he was opposed to at a time when his constituents were hungry and without work. Walker never had a legitimate reason to oppose Obama’s ideas, but he did it anyway because Republicans thought it would help them politically if they further destroyed the economy while a Democrat was in office, lest the public remember just how we got here.

Will Walker be humbled by his plan to save himself by finally promising to do what economists have been pushing for all along? I wouldn’t count on it, after all, he is just promising this money in the lead up to the recall. There is no guarantee that this isn’t just another one of Walker’s political bailouts. This is the same man who promised he was not coming for the unions and who claimed to be a moderate.

Who’s the leader here? Why, that would be President Obama. The skulking clowns you see running after him in the dark of night are Republicans, too ashamed to admit that they know what would help the country but they just don’t want to do it unless it will benefit them directly.

Image: BlueRobot Flickr

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Listen to Sarah on the PoliticusUSA Pod on The Daily newsletter podcast here. Sarah has been credentialed to cover President Barack Obama, then VP Joe Biden, 2016 Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, and exclusively interviewed Speaker Nancy Pelosi multiple times and exclusively covered her first home appearance after the first impeachment of then President Donald Trump. Sarah is two-time Telly award winning video producer and a member of the Society of Professional Journalists. Connect with Sarah on Post,  Mastodon @PoliticusSarah@Journa.Host, & Twitter.

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