If Only Scott Walker Had Done Nothing

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Remember this from December 2010? ...

Channel 3000 Excerpt:
One forecast shows that even if Walker does nothing the state will add 190,000 jobs over the next four years. Another forecast shows there will be nearly 290,000 new jobs.

Don't bother clicking the link. It's long cold.

Janesville area residents might also remember this supporting piece near the same time from the Janesville Gazette's editorial desk...

JG Editorial Excerpt:
During the gubernatorial campaign, Scott Walker vowed to create 250,000 jobs during his first term. He might pull it off, considering the steps he’s already taking and the fact that the state’s work force keeps growing about 1 percent annually. At that rate, the state would add more than 100,000 jobs in four years even if Walker did nothing.

THAT editorial was only one month after the election! But don't bother clicking that link either ...it's dead. To be fair, both links possibly had their addresses changed for archiving. Possibly...

So let's look at the numbers. Up to and including the month of June, one fact checker put Walker's jobs total at 100,313 or about 40 percent of the total promised. With six months to go, it's very unlikely Walker will reach 250,000. In fact, Wisconsin has almost no chance to reach even the lower 190,000 projected estimate given four years ago. So what happened?

Well, we all know Scott Walker's "reforms" happened.

Yet according to the RGA Stand with Scott Wisconsin PAC, Walker's reforms helped put more Wisconsin residents back to work and in a recent survey, 94% of Wisconsin business leaders say the state is moving in the right direction. Before Walker took office, 90% said the state was headed in the wrong direction. That's quite a flip.

Let me see if I have this straight. Back in 2010, economic forecasters expected Wisconsin to create on average, 240,000 jobs over the next four years, while CEO's from that same period said Wisconsin was on the wrong track?

We now know Walker's wrong-headed reforms had a tremendous adverse effect on the state's jobs picture - in real time, failure is imminent. It's really not a projection anymore. But what explains the obvious inversion between the jobs projection and the CEO's outlook and why do they (CEOs) have such a a high regard for Walker's reforms?

Perhaps this one sentence will help us appreciate the CEO's point of view, all on display in basically the same time frame ...

Democurmudgeon Excerpt:
Not only that, as Plexus shed 116 workers, CEO Dean Foate saw his compensation go from $2.1 million in 2009, to $4.1 million in 2013.

Did your pay almost double doing the same job over the past four years? That just about aces it.