DPW Blog

After months of historic division, job loss, criminal corruption and partisan power grabs, Tom Barrett will put Wisconsin first and end Scott Walker’s ideological civil war.

Assembly Democratic Leader Peter Barca offered this week's Democratic Weekly Radio Address. The topic is Gov. Walker's terrible jobs record, including a
review of more than 20 years of federal Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) seasonally adjusted job data that shows Wisconsin has never led the nation in job loss as far back the current methodology accurately accounts.

Scott Walker and his Republican Party are up to their usual dirty tricks in a desperate attempt to cling to power and subvert the democratic process. Recently, the Government Accountability Board certified the names of Republicans – posing as Democrats – to appear on the ballot.

Think about what you do in a typical 24 hours.
 
If you were Scott Walker, you’d kill 24 jobs - a job every single hour of every single day. Since Scott Walker took office, Wisconsin has led the nation in job loss for a total of 10,200 Wisconsin jobs lost – just about a job every hour.

On Earth Day, let's reflect on what we can all do to protect our lakes, land and legacy. Sadly, Governor Walker and the GOP have taken us in the wrong direction-- against protecting clean jobs and drinking water while putting corporate donors ahead of public health. Their actions actually threatened jobs and will pollute our drinking water, which is so important to life itself.

At the same time that Wisconsin is leading the nation in job loss under Scott Walker, his Republican Party has salted the earth for economic development and instead focused on enacting extreme social policy that has devastated programs critical to women and children’s health, interfered in the relationship between women and their doctors and stripped pay equity protections for women, veterans, seniors and disabled workers.

The grassroots effort to collect and turn in nearly two million signatures to recall Scott Walker, Rebecca Kleefisch and four extreme right-wing state Senators has already been the most successful and participated-in recall in the history of the United States. But that was just Phase One.

New research obtained by the Democratic Party of Wisconsin reveals that Scott Walker alone was responsible for the hire and promotion of Tim Russell and Kelly Rindfleisch, two key figures in the John Doe criminal corruption probe that has, to date, charged six close Walker aides and supporters with 15 felonies, resulted in two convictions and required Scott Walker himself to establish a criminal defense fund.

As Mitt Romney travels through Wisconsin ahead of the state’s Republican primary on Tuesday, he is joined by Paul Ryan, architect of the Republican plan to end Medicare as we know it.

Today, the Government Accountability Board certified our signatures and set June 5 as the recall election date. This election will be the first major battleground of the 2012 cycle, and what happens in Wisconsin has major implications for the direction of both Wisconsin and our great nation.

It is in Wisconsin where we will decide if the halls of power are to be forever hijacked by extreme Tea Party politicians and their powerful special interests or if our democracy is still open to ordinary, hardworking people.