We’re back with the latest installment of You Be The Judge, where our team of independent fact-checkers looks at a claim, puts it in context, goes beyond the carefully worded claim to break down the issues, presents all the facts and then lets you be the judge on whether it holds water.
This time around we’re evaluating something slightly different.
In addition to regularly examining specific claims by elected officials, pundits and other prominent politicos, PoltiFact Wisconsin also maintains what it calls the “Walk-O-Meter,” where they’ve compiled 65 of Scott Walker’s 2010 campaign promises, track their progress and rate the status of each promise as “Promise Broken,” “Compromise,” “Promise Kept,” “Stalled” or “In the Works.”
Some promises are trivial and some are major, like the promises surrounding jobs and the economy. Some promises were kept or broken pretty quickly and without fanfare; PolitiFact largely gets those right. For example, Walker’s promise to do away with the state’s Commerce Department in favor of a public-private economic development agency came to fruition very quickly. A “Promise Kept,” for sure, although with Wisconsin ranked dead last in the Midwest on job creation there’s certainly an argument to be made that it’s a promise that possibly should have been broken.
And as for Walker’s promise to oppose and veto any and all tax increases? That promise was broken with Walker’s very first budget, as the nonpartisan Legislative Fiscal Bureau reported that Walker raised taxes on seniors and working families by $69.8 million. PolitiFact gets it right with a “Promise Broken,” noting that not only did Walker not oppose tax increases—he was the one who proposed them.
While all the promises a candidate makes in order to get elected are important and Walker should be held accountable for all of his, there’s one promise that stands head and shoulders above the others.
That’s of course Walker’s central campaign promise to create 250,000 new private sector jobs in his first term—a promise in 2010 he said he “absolutely” wanted to be held accountable to and which he joked was so essential to his success as governor that he would brand “250,000 jobs” on the foreheads of his cabinet secretaries.
Win, lose or draw in November, Walker’s first term in office ends Jan. 4, 2015. So with just about four months left to make good on his promise, where does Walker stand?
As of Aug. 14, Wisconsin had created just 102,813 private sector jobs since Walker took office with 147,187 to go, good for a “Stalled” from PolitiFact.
|
|
That’s based on a combination of what Walker called the “gold standard” federal jobs numbers, the Quarterly Census on Employment and Wages, and the monthly federal jobs data. Doing the math here, Walker is 41% towards his jobs promise and has completed about 90% of his term—not looking good for the governor.
With the time remaining, is it even possible for Walker to fulfill the promise? Not a chance, say top economic experts and even Walker himself. In order to meet Walker’s 250,000 jobs promise, Wisconsin would have to average 29,437 new jobs over each of the next five months. In context, that number is more than the state created in each of the past two years. Only in 2011, when the first half of the year was under the previous governor’s budget, did Wisconsin create more than 29,437 jobs, with 33,872 jobs added.
Tom Hefty and John Torinus, two Wisconsin business executives at the forefront of the statewide economic development initiative Be Bold in 2010, which proposed the 250,000 jobs goal as an attainable goal based on normal, moderate economic growth, are making that same case in a recent article in the publication Wisconsin Interest, saying:
“Although there has been a grudging improvement in Wisconsin’s economic performance since the Great Recession, due in part to a strategic focus on manufacturing, the state will not create 250,000 jobs by the end of 2014. Neither will Wisconsin be ranked as a top 10 state for business climate. Those goals, set out by Gov. Scott Walker in 2010, remain worthy. But they won’t be achieved.”
So when speaking with Kilmeade and Friends on Fox News Radio on Aug. 28, when Walker was asked, “Would you admit that you didn’t reach your goal?,” his answer was truthful: “No doubt about it.”
With a virtually 0% chance of reaching 250,000 jobs, is it similarly truthful to say this promise is simply “Stalled”? Or should we be honest and call it what it is—a “Promise Broken”? You be the judge.
