When Scott Walker ran for governor of Wisconsin in 2010, he portrayed himself as an affable, thrifty guy, who brought his lunch to work in a brown paper bag just like the people he promised to serve. He promised in his campaign that his pro-business reforms would bring 250,000 jobs to the beleaguered state’s manufacturing base. And he swore he’d be different than all those other politicians who’d come before.

The governor that Walker became in office is decidedly a different character than the average Joe we saw on the campaign trail: a governor whose political aspirations lie far beyond Madison. Governor Walker is facing charges of illegally steering campaign donations and backing terrible environmental legislation from those donors. He couldn’t find it in his heart to reach out to LGBT Wisconsinites and congratulate them on their new right to marry. He’s still backing a voter ID law that would disenfranchise the state’s elderly, minority, and low income voters in the hopes that’ll it’ll keep him in office, even though the US supreme court blocked it in an emergency ruling on Thursday.

And that’s just in the last month.

Then there’s the economy – which was supposed to be his shining achievement. One of his first actions upon taking office in 2011 was to add his campaign slogan “Open for Business” to the “Welcome to Wisconsin” signs that greet people at the state line – at a cost to taxpayers of $1,500.

They didn’t help. Forbes ranked Wisconsin as one of the 10 worst states for business in 2012. The most recent Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages report showed that we are currently ranked 33rd in the country in job growth – and we’re dead last when compared to other states in the midwest. Jobs in the urban centers of Milwaukee and Madison have been stagnant during this time, and manufacturing jobs are just vanishing.

Some of the job losses could’ve been mitigated, had the governor not turned down federal transportation funds to build a new passenger rail system connecting Chicago to Minneapolis and St Paul through Wisconsin. Walker’s refusal not only cost the state the federal funds, but the Spanish train company Talgo – which had been encouraged by them to locate a manufacturing facility in an area of Milwaukee hit particularly hard by the recession – sued the state for breach of contract.

Meanwhile, one of Walker’s major reforms was to eliminate the Department of Commerce, replacing it with a public/private hybrid called the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation. It was intended to serve as a job creation agency, but has faced myriad management issues – including going $14m over budget in 2012 and losing track of $8m in overdue loans it had issued. Oops.



To fix the state’s budget shortfall after taking office, Walker simply cut aid to state schools, local, and county governments, and then he cut wages and benefits for government workers statewide. Next month, 83 school districts are holding referenda to raise taxes just to cover their operating costs.

The surplus he created through such drastic actions is almost gone because, instead of putting it into a rainy day fund, Walker just cut taxes. Of course, those cuts didn’t go to the middle class, or those aspiring to middle class: the Wisconsin Budget Project says that, while the poorest 20% of people will save on average of $48 a year, the top 1% will get a break of $2,518 per household. Plus the state now looks to end the current fiscal year about $396m short of paying its bills, and revenues will fall short of projected spending in the next biennium by $1.8bn.

None of that is fiscal responsibility – it’s recklessness. It shows that Walker doesn’t care about the future of Wisconsin or its children: he cares about the future of Scott Walker. He has done nothing to make the lives of the average Wisconsinite better, and has done nothing to earn our votes. If he is reelected – and he’s still got quite a lead on challenger Mary Burke – we are all but guaranteed that he will abandon his office to pursue the pipe dream of the presidency.

In the end, his policies have left the state’s economy in shambles, all in the hopes of winning over the Tea Party types who he hopes can carry him to a Republican presidential nomination in 2016. If he does, it won’t just be the people of Wisconsin who will have to clean up his mess.