Subject: NYT: Scott Walker Faulted for Failures of Wisconsin State Agency
From: DNC Press <[email-masked]>
To: DNC Press <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 22 May 2015 15:24:37 +0000

Scott Walker Faulted for Failures of Wisconsin State Agency<http://www.nytimes.com/politics/first-draft/2015/05/22/scott-walker-faulted-for-failures-of-wisconsin-state-agency/>
NEW YORK TIMES // ALAN RAPPEPORT

If senators who run for president are cursed with defending every vote they cast, governors must answer for their economic records.

As Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin edges closer to formalizing his White House bid, Democrats and Republicans who hope to derail it think they have found a potential Achilles' heel in the misfortunes of the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation<http://inwisconsin.com/>, which he helped create.

Critics from both parties have been suggesting that Mr. Walker's mismanagement was responsible for the organization's failure to create as many jobs as it was supposed to and for mishandling funds. A state audit released<http://legis.wisconsin.gov/lab/reports/13-7full.pdf> this month said the agency "did not have sufficient policies, including some that are statutorily required, to administer its programs effectively."

Mr. Walker, who is chairman of the W.E.D.C.<http://inwisconsin.com/inside-wedc/board/members/>, said last week that the agency, created to provide loans to local businesses, would be overhauled. Instead of offering nearly $20 million a year in loans, it would turn to tax incentives and require businesses to show they are making the most of the help.

Democrats are also seizing on a Wisconsin State Journal investigation<http://host.madison.com/wsj/news/local/govt-and-politics/top-scott-walker-aides-pushed-for-questionable-wedc-loan/article_2a29333c-c3dd-50ac-a4b6-c333506530e0.html> that found that under Mr. Walker's watch in 2011, the development agency lent $500,000 of taxpayer money to Building Committee Inc, which had failed to pay taxes the previous year. The company, whose owner was a donor to Mr. Walker, later went out of business.

"Scott Walker's failed flagship jobs agency has been a disaster since its hasty inception," said Melissa Baldauff, a spokeswoman for the Wisconsin Democratic Party.

According to a report in The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel<http://www.jsonline.com/news/statepolitics/joint-finance-to-deal-today-with-troubled-wedc-cuts-to-seniorcare-b99504512z1-304551231.html>, Republicans in Wisconsin are also taking issue with Mr. Walker's handling of the agency. They have released a plan to relieve him as chairman, aiming for more oversight over the agency.

As for Mr. Walker, he has acknowledged the agency's shortcomings but he continues to promote his economic record in the state. At a rally in Oklahoma City on Thursday, he said that his state's jobless rate had fallen to 4.4 percent in April<https://dwd.wisconsin.gov/dwd/newsreleases/2015/unemployment/150521_april_state.pdf>.

While nearly 130,000 jobs have been created in the state under his watch since 2010, Mr. Walker's opponents point out that the total is only about half of the quarter of a million new jobs<http://www.jsonline.com/news/statepolitics/promise-of-250000-jobs-hasnt-changed-scott-walker-says-b9985606z1-221486831.html> he promised.