Six Questions Scott Walker Won’t Answer
MADISON-On the day he debuts a television commercial that conveniently ignores the promise he broke by giving himself a $50,000 raise two years ago, Scott Walker today goes before students at his alma mater, Marquette University, to face questions.
Here are six you won’t hear him answer:
1. Because of your mismanagement, the rest of Wisconsin is footing the bill for Milwaukee County’s food aid, child care and medical assistance programs. How can you claim to fiscal responsibility when you passed the buck to Wisconsin’s taxpayers, who now must pay the price of your poor performance and mismanagement?
2. The county’s Economic Support Division had to be taken over in recent years because of your gross mismanagement. The Walker Behavioral Health Division is beset by various probes into negligence and sexual assault, including a new report today (link). The Walker transit system is in crisis. The Walker budget is busted. The Walker parks system is in decay. Property taxes and spending have spiked under Walker watch. How can you in good conscience go before Wisconsin voters and ask them to submit to your reckless management?
3. You have called for a $287 million tax giveaway to the richest one percent of Wisconsinites. Why should “Walker One Percenters” get $287 million, and not middle-class and working families who have suffered the most under the Bush-Walker economy?
4. You have proposed cutting taxes to the rich and the corporate elite by $2 billion, and the state already faces a projected $2 billion deficit. Can you share with voters specifically how you plan to pay for these tax giveaways to the wealthiest, which investments will have to be cut – education, aid to local communities, health care, and which communities will be most impacted, to offset them?
5. You’ve eliminated Milwaukee County’s jobs-creation division during the worst economic crisis since the Depression. You’ve mocked the work of the “M 7” economic development group, which has brought and created 2000 jobs in Wisconsin in the past 4 months alone, as putting “lipstick on a pig.” Your actions have not helped to create a single job for Wisconsin. How are your job creation promises at all credible?
6. Your proposed spending has increased 35 percent since you became county executive, your proposed tax levy has increased by 18 percent. You promised you would cut both spending and the tax levy while in office and have done neither. How does your rhetoric square with your record?
