Free Republic

As he gears up his putative 2016 presidential campaign, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) has found himself increasingly mired in a mess back in Wisconsin. It's not the kind of scandal that sends tabloids into a lather, but it has Democrats pouncing and good government types scolding, and even some state Republicans have piled on Walker. The mess involves an entity called the Wisconsin Economic Development Corp. (WEDC), a state agency Walker himself established when first elected to fulfill his promise of creating a wave of new jobs. The problems at WEDC have multiplied since. Recently, Walker was forced to...

MADISON, Wis. (AP) — Economists say new jobs numbers being reported by Gov. Scott Walker's administration are a more accurate reflection of how the state is doing. But even if the figures released Wednesday are accurate, the 23,300 jobs created in 2011 are far from the 62,500 needed per year for Walker to meet his 2010 campaign pledge to create 250,000 by 2015. And the new...

In an unusual effort to rebut bad news on the jobs front, the Walker administration is speeding up release of new numbers showing job gains rather than job losses in Wisconsin last year. The numbers come from a source familiar to many economists but one that hasn't figured until now in the state's highly politicized jobs debate heading into the June 5 recall election: the Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages. The new figures, provided to the Journal Sentinel on Tuesday, cover the final three months of 2011. State officials said they show a gain of 23,321 jobs (public and...