Pro-Walker Newspaper Spins Yarn Against Talgo

Tweet

Two weeks after endorsing Scott Walker for governor, the Janesville Gazette wastes no time in his defense posting a made-up scenario to report on and pawn off as a legitimate news article on their hardcopy front-page. Titled "Landing train maker could have hurt city" with "Some counting blessings in wake of Talgo warnings" (not Walker warnings) as the sub-title, the newspaper de-emphasized the hostile Gov. elect's ideologically challenged campaign to block federal subsidies for hi-speed commuter rail and reframes the train maker as an uncooperative ingrate who can't be trusted.

JG Excerpt:
What if Talgo had selected Janesville, and what if the train maker decided to leave after only a few months of production? The answer is that a local developer would have lost a tenant and jobs, and taxpayers would have been on the hook for months of lease payments on vacant space that could have topped $500,000.

What if?...yeah, the train maker would just get up and leave for no legitimate reason - it's not like the election of Scott Walker as the next governor of Wisconsin would have had anything to do with it.

Back in March, Janesville city officials had no doubt of Talgo's integrity and promise to bring jobs into the city.

JG Excerpt:
In our opinion, the worst case scenario would have been three years (of lease payments),” Grassman said. “The economy is going up, and we were optimistic that once they came they would stay. “We’ve got to make stuff happen, and this shows how serious we were.”

Whoops, there it is. Back then, Janesville city officials worked hard to lure Talgo and they had no reason to believe they would fail to keep up their end of the bargain. With so many unforeseen events yet to happen, who in their right mind would think the next governor would pose the greatest obstacle to any job creation?

While the city's efforts were not successful with Talgo, the Gazette's backwardly written fabrication implying how lucky we are, could be enough to plant the seeds of doubt for the city's future efforts to compete for jobs and businesses.

As the Gov.-elect's mismanagement of Talgo demonstrates, with Walker as governor, it might not be worth the risk.

Gazette Post's "brief" on "Brief"

Also in Saturday's Gazette was a "brief" article relating to the verbal skirmish between Gov.-elect Scott Walker and Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn over the train funding. Titled "War of words between officials" the newspaper reports that Walker plans on persuading Illinois businesses to come to Wisconsin by emphasizing that Quinn has proposed massive tax increases. Tha Gazette left the following information out from the short article.

Madison Excerpt:
Talgo had said it would move from that facility if Wisconsin follows through on its promise to abandon high-speed rail.

Quinn spokeswoman Ashley Cross criticized Walker's characterization of massive tax increases. She says even with Quinn's proposal of a 1 percent tax for education, Illinois' individual income tax rate would be 4 percent. Wisconsin's ranges from 4.6 percent to 7.75 percent.

There's nothing like being ill-informed and paying for it.

Quote for the week
Lobo – “Walker really WANTS the train built so Wisconsin can reap the benefits ... he merely wanted to demogogue the issue to take advantage of the stupidity of his base.”