Walker: Democracy Is A Threat To Our Jobs!*

The news came out early that Scott Walker and his administration were again trying to pump unverified numbers which would show, if they were even remotely true, that the state had gained 28,000 jobs from March 2011 to March 2012.

Again, these numbers are unverified and their accuracy (and integrity) are questionable. But even if you want to give the numbers the benefit of the doubt, we already know that any gain which might have occurred in the first three months of that time period, when former Governor Jim Doyle's budget and policies were still in effect.

When Walker came out with these numbers, it should've raised a red flag with the gentle reader. It smacked of being nothing more than an exercise in damage control.

And indeed, that's what it was.

Later in the day, the job numbers for July came out, and they weren't pretty:

Wisconsin lost an estimated 6,000 private-sector jobs in July and the unemployment rate climbed to 7.3% from 7% in June and 6.8% in May, according to preliminary data released Thursday by the state Department of Workforce Development.

July marks the second consecutive month of deep private-sector job losses after Wisconsin lost a revised 11,300 private-sector jobs in June, which was the deepest job losses in Wisconsin in a year.

In the government sector, meanwhile, Wisconsin lost an estimated 500 jobs, led mainly by cutbacks in cities, counties and public schools. Net losses in both the government and private sectors led to an overall decrease of 6,500 total non-farm jobs last month in Wisconsin, the report said.

That's a loss of almost 18,000 jobs in just the first two months since the recall election. In fact, the job losses in June alone catapulted the state back into the number one job loser in the country.

And as we all know, Walker said that after the recall their would be an explosion of jobs. It's more like an implosion than an explosion.

Sad to say, Walker still hasn't caught on to the fact that it's not working.

This morning, he was again on the radio with Charlie Sykes, doing the damage control spin before the bad news hit. In jaw-dropping audacity, Walker actually started blaming the poor job numbers on the upcoming presidential election, claiming that not knowing if President Barack Obama would be reelected and if the Affordable Care Act would be allowed to stand was causing uncertainty with business owners. Walker then blamed this "uncertainty" as being the reason that they weren't hiring. He then added that he new this because "business leaders were telling" him this.

Sounds an awful lot like the bullsh*t excuses he was tossing about during the time leading up to the recall election, doesn't it?

The frightening part is that I could really see Walker and his allies trying to really put the screws to our electoral process, all in the name of job creation. Kind of makes you really want to get out and help our progressive candidates, doesn't it? That way we could save democracy and get jobs to come back in one fell swoop.

*Alternative title: The Walker Budget Keeps Working! Part XCCCVII