Wisconsin’s Walker Wants to Hide Jobs Info, Just Like Indiana

[marmar]

from In These Times:



Wisconsin’s Walker Wants to Hide Jobs Info, Just Like Indiana

Tuesday
Dec 28, 2010
2:42 pm

By Roger Bybee


Wisconsin Governor-Elect Scott Walker, elected with the ardent support of Wisconsin's CEOs and Tea Partiers, incessantly claims that he is "on the side of taxpayers."

Yet one of the first moves he is planning would deprive taxpayers of key information about the Commerce Department's use of tax dollars from taxpayer oversight. Walker is citing the model of Indiana and its "public-private partnership."

But the Indiana Economic Development Corporation's conduct in a 2008 tax-subsidy deal for a Honda plant in Greensburg, Ind., illustrates the dangers of handing tax dollars to an unaccountable corporate-style entity (outlined here and here.) Indiana taxpayers contributed $141 million in subsidies (at both local and state levels) to Honda, yet workers from only a small almost all-white region of the state—described by one expert as "anti-union and pro-Klan"—could apply for jobs at a new Honda plant.

Either unaware or unfazed by the potential troubles a corporate-run state agency could produce, Walker and his staff argue that Wisconsin needs a more "aggressive" approach in recruiting businesses to locate jobs in Wisconsin. A "public-private partnership" exempting the entity from some state laws would allow it to be "more nimble" in recruiting.

Walker gushes with enthusiasm for this strategy:

For us, we're very interested in looking at a public-private partnership that still has the state having a direct role, supportive role, in promoting economic development, but not necessarily doing that all through a state agency.

Under Walker's "Be Bold" plan, through which he has promised to create 250,000 jobs, the state's Department of Commerce would become a public-private" entity much like the one created in Indiana in 2005 by Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels. (However, Walker's rejection of $810 million in federal high-speed rail funds already has put him deep in the hole, costing thousands of jobs betore he is even sworn in on January 3.) ..........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.inthesetimes.com/working/entry/6797/wisconsins_walker_wants_to_hide_jobs_info_just_like_indiana/

[DCKit]

1. Somehow, I don't think any (R) has the ability to juggle this much BS.

They're all going to go down, in time.

[Brickbat]

2. IIRC, the "Be Bold" plan is not Walker's plan. It's been in the works for some time and both Walker

and Scott endorsed it during the election.

[Traveling_Home]

3. Don't spoil the narrative, Dammit nt

[elocs]

4. Walker has promised 250,000 new jobs in WI in his 4 years

but I've heard that Wisconsin would create that many new jobs in 4 years even if Walker did nothing. I'm assuming that "nothing" would mean not driving away jobs from the state as he did with rejecting high speed rail even before he became governor.

[Lifelong Protester]

5. And of course this is the guy who turned down 800+ million

from the feds for the light rail project, because I guess those would not be the kind of jobs he envisions.

The guy is a complete loser.