Scott Walker’s exaggerated record on jobs

By

PaulBrandus

Columnist

Scott Walker has been compared to Ronald Reagan by both Republicans and Democrats—sparking hopes, and fears, that he’d be just like the Gipper in the White House. Great for the jobs and the economy, GOPers say. A deficit-busting enemy of the working man, counter Dems. Is he as good as some Republicans think and as bad as Democrats fear? And how has the Badger state’s economy fared under his leadership?

Walker crows that he’s a hardcore conservative who has rolled to three consecutive victories in a deep blue state. Wisconsin, after all, hasn’t supported a Republican for president since the Reagan landslide of 1984.

Impressive, though it’s fair to note that Walker’s wins for governor have come in non-presidential years—2010 and 2014—when lazy Democrats don’t vote. But independents do, and Walker has consistently done well with this swing group, getting 56% and 54% in his two races, and 54% in the 2012 recall vote. Those are consistent, solid margins spread out over several years, which suggests Walker’s appeal has staying power.

On a national basis, Walker is largely known as the governor who eliminated collective bargaining rights for most public employee unions in Wisconsin—and then beat back a recall motion over it. It vaulted him into folk-hero status with conservatives, and Walker has been milking it for all it’s worth ever since—including one since-retracted claim that if he can take on Wisconsin’s unions, he can handle ISIS in the Middle East.

The win further emboldened Walker. Just last week he won round two in his fight against against big labor, signing a “right to work bill” that says private-sector workers don’t have to pay union fees if they don’t want to. The Governor called the measure “one more big tool” for attracting jobs to his state.

The fight versus Wisconsin’s unions has national implications. Walker argues that the rest of the country needs similar reforms; if he were to win the White House, a President Walker and Republican-controlled Congress would almost certainly move to weaken labor laws wherever they could, shifting power from workers to corporations.

Walker has cut both income and property taxes. But the cuts have been fiscally irresponsible: he now has a $283 million budget deficit to deal with—and is looking at a $2 billion shortfall in the state’s two-year budget cycle that begins in July. The governor is now vowing to skip an upcoming debt payment—a tactic that should be raising howls in conservative circles. Rick Perry left a Triple-A credit rating when he stepped down as Texas Governor, as did Jeb Bush in Florida. But Fitch and Standard & Poor’s rate Wisconsin’s long-term general-obligation bonds AA. Moody’s rating is lower: Aa2.

Walker thinks Wisconsin can grow its way out of this shortfall. But even with tax cuts and weaker labor laws, his job creation record—compared to the promises he made—has been less than stellar.

In the year before he became governor, Wisconsin’s unemployment rate fell 100 basis points, to 8% from 9%, as the U.S. economy began to recover from a crippling recession. The national rate, meantime, fell just 70 basis points, to 9.2% from 9.9%.

But what happened after Walker took over? Between January 2011 and January 2015, Wisconsin’s rate fell another 300 basis points, to 5% from 8%. But the national rate, meantime, fell even faster, dropping 350 basis points to 5.7% from 9.2%.

Thus: Wisconsin’s recovery outpaced the U.S. before Walker took over, but has lagged ever since.

He promised to create 250,000 jobs in his first term; the real total has been about 159,000. The Governor’s reaction: so? It’s still one of the best job records in the Midwest—surpassing growth in neighboring Iowa, Nebraska, South Dakota and North Dakota, for example.

Talk about disingenuous. Of course Wisconsin’s job number is bigger: its population of 5.6 million is nearly as large as Iowa, Nebraska, South Dakota and North Dakota combined. The real way to gauge job growth is in relative terms: how many jobs are being created relative to the state’s population? Here, Wisconsin trails not just its upper Midwest neighbors, but the nation at large.

Private-sector job growth between June 2013 and June 2014 (the latest data available) was 1.3% compared to 2.1% nationwide.

“When you look at all this,” says Charles Franklin, a Marquette University Law School professor and pollster, “Walker’s economic record is substantially exaggerated. I think this will be a weak point for him.”

That’s what happens when you overpromise but under deliver. But Walker is fairly lucky: as a relative newcomer to the national stage—he is far less known than Bush or Perry, for example—most Americans don’t know these details. He and his people can keep spinning things like good fiscal stewardship and solid job creation. It doesn’t mean they’re true, but that’s how the game is played.