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Privatization Fail: Scott Walker's WEDC in Full Meltdown (Is this Free Market economics?
PR Watch ^ | 5/18/2015 | Mary Bottari

Posted on 05/24/2015 11:46:40 AM PDT by Laissez-faire capitalist

During the 2010 campaign for governor, Scott Walker promised to create 250,000 jobs in his first term.

Toward this end, one of his first acts as governor was to privatize the state's economic development agency. Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation (WEDC) opened its doors in July 2011. After a series of damning audits, which highlighted mismanagement and incompetence, and news reports of special treatment for Walker donors, on Monday Democratic state lawmakers called for a federal investigation of the scandal-plagued entity.

Walker is the Chairman of the Board

When walker created WEDC in 2011, he named himself Chairman of the Board.

Although it was a privatized agency, WEDC was in charge of a staggering amount of taxpayer dollars: $519 million in bonds, loans, grants and tax credits in 2011-2012 alone; and the WEDC board is ultimately responsible for those dollars. While experts debate the role state government plays in job creation, one set of jobs Walker can more precisely lay claim to are those created by the economic development corporation board he governs.

In 2012, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel broke the story that WEDC had lost track of $12 million in loans because it never asked businesses to pay them back. ...

A damning 2013 audit by Wisconsin's professional, nonpartisan, state audit bureau made headlines when it documented dozens of ways in which the new agency was breaking the law. ...

WEDC promised to clean up its act and reported to the legislature and the state audit bureau in October 2013 it had addressed all the concerns raised in the May 2013 audit.

But a new May 2015 state audit [link at URL] shows the situation is even worse.

WEDC Can't Account For Jobs Created and Isn't Even Trying

...

(Excerpt) Read more at prwatch.org ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Constitution/Conservatism; Culture/Society; Front Page News; Government; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections; US: Florida; US: Iowa; US: New Hampshire; US: South Carolina; US: Wisconsin
KEYWORDS: 2016election; budget; cruz; cruzsycophants; economy; election2016; paultardation; paultardnoisemachine; randpaulnoisemachine; randsconcerntrolls; scottwalker; taxes; tedcruz; walker; wedc; wisconsin
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To: ducks1944

You got it wrong, darlin... I was defending Walker. I think you meant your post for someone else.


81 posted on 05/25/2015 9:46:44 AM PDT by Tamzee (Man is not free unless government is limited. ~~~ Ronald Reagan)
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To: conservativejoy
Watchdog.org is "considered extremely reliable and factual as a conservative viewpoint." - your words, not mine.
82 posted on 05/25/2015 11:17:11 AM PDT by Brown Deer (Pray for 0bama. Psalm 109:8)
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To: litehaus

/bingo


83 posted on 05/25/2015 12:25:20 PM PDT by SunkenCiv (What do we want? REGIME CHANGE! When do we want it? NOW!)
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To: Laissez-faire capitalist
You mean Cruz the traitor who sold us out to a Traitorous secret treaty that
destroyed the constitutional law requires a 66 votes to pass and allows the Soros puppet unlimited power to revise an open treaty to unleash millions of slave foreign labor into the US that vote Dem aka socialism? Has Cruz answered why he would vote to give Barry the Soros puppet a secret treaty with no limits to his power ?.

Drudge called it Gop Treason !

Cruz is just another bought off K street / Chamber of cronyism hack.

84 posted on 05/25/2015 4:47:25 PM PDT by ncalburt ( Amnesty-media out in full force)
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To: Laissez-faire capitalist

Another hit piece by the left. This is just the beginning of the leftist barrage to keep the rats from losing power.


85 posted on 05/26/2015 4:09:03 AM PDT by Neoliberalnot (Marxism works well only with the uneducated and the unarmed.)
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To: Erik Latranyi

Walker implemented Obamacare without his legislature. Unless he has changed his position again, he was against the repeal of Obamacare.

Your assertion that Walker had to ban guns in state buildings to get concealed carry passed is just False. The bill was passed with no such restrictions. Walker later implemented those bans on state buildings and has only eased some of those restrictions since his potential run for President. He has flip flopped on the issue of gun control altogether. He sponsored a gun control bill as a state legislator and did not change his position until he decided to run for President.

It may be O.K. with you if Walker wants to hold bills up so he can have a big event to sign them, but a Prolife Bill is not something to do that with. The intent of the bill is to save lives and that’s urgent and far more important than an event that is all about him. Furthermore, prolife advocates and his own legislators have complained that he has not in any way tried to help get prolife legislation passed.

Walker has also done NOTHING to protect traditional marriage in his state. Besides legalizing all gay marriages back to last June, he has attended a gay wedding. I know that one of them was some relation to his wife, but as the governor of a state, that was the wrong thing to do.

Walker inherited Common Core, but he also pushed through legislation himself that kept most of it in place before the public knew what was in the bill. He didn’t come out against Common Core until running for President.

When Walker said there would be no Religious Liberty bill in Wisconsin, he did not say anything about what currently existed in Wisconsin. It was a clear appeasement of the Gaystapo.

The long list of Amnesty positions that Walker has held have been posted on threads here many times. He only recently changed his position on the fines and then a pathway to citizenship to go back home first. Again, he only changed when he started running for President.

People with strongly held principles, values, and solutions on issues, bring those with them when they enter a Presidential race. Walker has been changing his position on just about everything. I have only listed some, not all. He does and says what is politically expedient for him. The only strong conviction he seems to have is his own ambition to be President.


86 posted on 05/27/2015 6:21:19 AM PDT by conservativejoy (We Can Elect Ted Cruz! Pray Hard, Work Hard, Trust God!)
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To: Erik Latranyi
It seems the more intensely a poster is attached to one candidate the more easily he is enticed to swallow the divisive left wing bait. It worked like a charm in 2012. The 'rat strategists watched us closely, and were delighted at what they discovered.
87 posted on 05/27/2015 5:48:30 PM PDT by hinckley buzzard
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To: palmer; conservativejoy

Agreed.

I have no problem with people who will defend Cruz vigorously. I completely love him myself, seeing his only major negative as being a low level of executive experience. I have huge problems with anyone who simply posts negatives about his opponents like Walker, and when those posts are based solely on such questionable sources, it has a tendency to lower my opinion of Cruz, due to the apparent company he keeps and the way he inspires “supporters”.

Just think how easy it is to write negative hit piece columns about the great Reagan!

Try to keep the discussion above board, recognizing all the great qualities each of these candidates have... including even Jeb Bush (excuse me while I wretch and puke here a bit for being forced to even admit that, but as bad as he would be for the country, he has done well.)


88 posted on 06/01/2015 8:48:46 AM PDT by AFPhys ((Praying for our troops, our citizens, that the Bible and Freedom become basis of the US law again))
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To: AFPhys

I’m not sure which of my posts you were referring to, Post 86 being the last.

Now is the time for vetting the candidates. If we are unwilling to realistically look at their record, we will be blindsided later.

I would ask that you also consider how differently the office of the Presidency and the office of governor are executed. Those who have been in both positions have acknowledged their differences. Do you think Obama would have been a better President if he had been a governor? That didn’t help Carter.

Ideology and character are the most important factors, along with their proposed solutions to our current problems. That is why I support Cruz, the only candidate with a 100% Conservative rating.


89 posted on 06/01/2015 9:12:54 AM PDT by conservativejoy (We Can Elect Ted Cruz! Pray Hard, Work Hard, Trust God!)
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To: Laissez-faire capitalist

We must not have the left saying “this is just another right-wing hit job.”....So, that is EXACTLY what they do EVERY time. Conservatives should ignore, never try to explain and say this ‘Old news.’


90 posted on 06/01/2015 9:39:33 AM PDT by Safetgiver ( Islam makes barbarism look genteel.)
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To: conservativejoy

I was replying to post 36, which was a reply to your post 33. It is not enough to simply write “I have seen someone somewhere say that guy is bad”. Someone and somewhere must be defined specifically for proper evaluation.

I have no doubts about Cruz being a great candidate. However, he is definitely not the only great candidate currently in the field, and some of those candidates are much stronger in the executive area where he is deficient. I think the only current candidates in the Blaze survey who get failing grades from me are Huckabee, Bush, and Christie - all who have strong executive experience - even though I consider that enormously important, but I downgrade them in so many other areas due to their policy execution. Oh yeah... Lindsey Graham also fails to me. Cruz and 3 others I evaluate (currently) as “A’s”, and I consider the many “B’s” very viable.

I have seen way too many hit pieces on Reagan, and YES, even on Cruz, to accept hit pieces or any of the other candidates as having something useful to say.

Matt Bevin just won the KY gov primary by saying “My opponent is a good man, and a good conservative. I think he would do a good job, but I believe I would be even better for the state.” FReepers are capable of keeping the discussion on that level when they try. I encourage you and other FReepers to strive for that.


91 posted on 06/01/2015 9:45:09 AM PDT by AFPhys ((Praying for our troops, our citizens, that the Bible and Freedom become basis of the US law again))
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To: AFPhys

One of the articles I read was at Red State, “Twelve Reasons Not to Vote for Scott Walker”.


92 posted on 06/01/2015 10:37:09 AM PDT by conservativejoy (We Can Elect Ted Cruz! Pray Hard, Work Hard, Trust God!)
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To: Laissez-faire capitalist

Kudos for posting information on WEDC. I have been researching and posting some articles on this for the last few days. The usual folks are screaming “Alinksky tactics”. It seems if you bring to light anything that is not flattering to Walker they go ballistic. They can’t refute the information, they only squawk about the source. You give them a conservative source and they divert.

I am getting the majority of my info from the Wisconsin State Journal, the oldest newspaper in Madison, and it is a solid conservative source. Not that it will make any difference to those whistling past the graveyard.

One fact I have discovered is that for every job created by WEDC, it has lost two. Wisconsin is 50th in new business growth. Pretty amazing bad record that we don’t want to take nationwide. Thanks for you post. It got me to research.

Walker must be Gov. of the State of Denial, because that seem to be where many of his supporters are.


93 posted on 06/07/2015 1:02:19 PM PDT by conservativejoy (We Can Elect Ted Cruz! Pray Hard, Work Hard, Trust God!)
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To: Laissez-faire capitalist

My faith in CW’s ability to pick an abject loser every election cycle is unshakeable.

Walker is a mediocre career politician for the past 26 years. He is not Presidential material any more than Jeb Bush or Chris Christie.


94 posted on 09/09/2015 10:10:31 AM PDT by Georgia Girl 2 (The only po f a pistol is to fight your way back to the rifle you should never have dropped.)
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