The 250k promise
Milwaukee County Executive Scott Walker promised that, if elected, he would create 250,000 jobs. The promise has attracted some silly attention from the political left who point out Wisconsin has about 250,000 currently unemployed.
Barrett’s communication director, Phil Walzak, countered that the mayor has a proven record of attracting and retaining jobs, including the Republic positions.
“Tom Barrett is the only candidate in the race for governor who has worked directly with business to create and bring jobs to Wisconsin,” Walzak said.
If Walker were to achieve his goal of creating 250,000 jobs, he would erase virtually all unemployment in the state. There were 250,900 unemployed people in the state in December 2009, according to the Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development.
That means Walker would be slashing the unemployment rate to a fraction of a percent, a “laughable” prospect, according to liberal group One Wisconsin Now.
“Instead of coming up with a detailed economic recovery plan, Walker simply pulled a number out of a hat,” said Scot Ross, the group’s executive director. “His choice of a number reveals how little he knows about the Wisconsin economy.”
Maybe a few Democrats ought to be sent back to remedial economics classes, or else they should have actually looked at the situation before criticizing.
While I agree that it’s silly to promise that the government will create the jobs, David Ward, president and founder of NorthStar Economics and a former finance professor, says 250,000 jobs isn’t unreasonable even if state government does little to change business conditions.
“Two hundred fifty thousand jobs sounds like a big number, but when you spread it out over four years and you know you’re down 180,000 jobs from the recession, you can do it,” Ward said. “But there aren’t any magic wands out there. The key thing is you can do it if the global and national economies move in the right direction.”
As the article in WisPolitics points out,
The winner of the governor’s race this year should benefit during the first two years of his term from what state economists are already projecting to be a significant rebound from the jobs lost during the Great Recession.
Add even modest growth during the final two years, and the next governor could be in the neighborhood of 250,000 more jobs over his first term without doing much to change the state’s business climate.
And as Brian Fraley of the MacIver Institute points out in his discussion with Scott Ross of the self-described partisan organization One Wisconsin Now,
As for his goal equaling the total number of reported unemployed, two things. 1) You assume no population growth over the next five years? That’s sad. See, people will move TO Wisconsin if there are jobs here, it’s a novel concept and 2) Jim Doyle is governor for another 11 months. If his global warming bill passes, the state will continue to shed jobs until the day those anti-business measures are repealed.
I would add two more points: 1) the number of underemployed, and 2) the number of those idle but no longer seeking work. Plenty of room for growth in this state if only government would get out of the way.
“And as Brian Fraley of the MacIver Institute points out in his discussion with Scott Ross of the self-described partisan organization One Wisconsin Now,”
See? Now that’s a sentence that can be studied for hours.
The simple fact is that Walker has sent more families to the Unemp[loyment Office than he’s been able to keep away from it. He has zero track record creating jobs and hasn’t shown the skills that might show that he even understands why that’s the case
[Reply]
James Wigderson Reply:
March 4th, 2010 at 10:17 pm
Is that you, Mark Neumann? Just kidding.
No, not one of my better sentences, but I shortened it from,”self-described ‘partisan’ organization with the wonderfully fascist-sounding name.”
[Reply]
Why do you point out OWN’s partisanship, but fail to do so for the right wing thunk tank (no, that wasn’t a typo) of MacGuyver? Could it be because you work for them. Rather disingenuous of you.
[Reply]
James Wigderson Reply:
March 5th, 2010 at 12:21 am
No, Capper. Apparently your union did not teach you to read. I wrote, “self-described” and I meant it. You can look it up.
http://www.wigderson.com/index.php/2009/02/16/from-now-on-they-are-the-partisan-one-wisconsin-now/
[Reply]
capper Reply:
March 5th, 2010 at 12:58 am
Ah, so you’re saying members of MacGuyver’s are in denial. Well, I guess I could buy that one.
[Reply]
James Wigderson Reply:
March 5th, 2010 at 1:26 am
No, one organization is non-partisan but free-market oriented, and the other organization is a snarling, nasty, attack arm of the Democratic Party, and describes it’s efforts as partisan. You may disagree with the ideas over at the MacIver Institute, but do you think they would ask me to write for them if they were afraid I might have a kind word for a Democrat or two every now and then? Or Osmulski?
Don’t get me wrong. I write from a certain point of view. But the idea is to push ideas, not a political party, which is what I’ve been about since I left partisan politics some years ago. If I wanted to write for a Republican Party newsletter, or if I wanted to start one, believe me it wouldn’t be that hard. I might even get better paid.
Oh, and if the economy would restore most of those jobs naturally, that means Walker wouldn’t have created them. Just another example of him trying to steal credit that doesn’t belong to him.
[Reply]
James Wigderson Reply:
March 5th, 2010 at 12:23 am
They will only occur naturally if the conditions are right for them, and Walker intends to make the correct conditions. Kinda like butterflies.
[Reply]
capper Reply:
March 5th, 2010 at 12:56 am
I don’t know about that. He has a long history of stealing the credit for other people’s works. And he has tried to take credit for the stimulus money he poo-pooed before.
[Reply]
James Wigderson Reply:
March 5th, 2010 at 12:59 am
And then he kicked your dog, threw the orphans out in the street, and made everyone eat broccoli.
Governors “create” jobs? Really?
[Reply]
Lindsey Walsh Reply:
March 5th, 2010 at 8:59 am
The current one has in state government. So, yes. Really.
[Reply]
James Wigderson Reply:
March 5th, 2010 at 9:16 am
Hey, I said it was silly. However, states can create better conditions for job and economic growth. There was an interesting study not too long ago that looked at whether paying more taxes resulted in better services (no, actually) but what was really interesting to me was taking the comparable states and seeing just how different their economies were and the directions they were headed largely in part by the type of governments they had over the long term. It was really interesting when you look at Texas and, despite having Democratic and Republican governors, their economic growth. Fun stuff. I’ll have to dig out that study.
[Reply]
Texas’ economy may be chugging along but their rate of kids without access to health care is abysmal, their State Board of Education is a shambles, developers run roughshod over homebuyers and consumer protection laws have been gutted by Big Business. It’s a Randian nightmare as it falls apart under the “care” of Bush/Perry”whose primary concern has been preservation of Business Climate.
[Reply]
James Wigderson Reply:
March 6th, 2010 at 9:40 pm
Hey, how’s California doing?
[Reply]