Real Money: Scott Walker’s Taxpayer-Funded $171,715

Scott Walker's base $144,423 salary is nearly three times the median household income in Wisconsin. Add in his annual $9,604 in taxpayer-funded pension contributions and $17,688 in taxpayer-funded healthcare benefits and Walker's total compensation package balloons to $171,715.

But it really doesn't stop there.

As the governor, Walker also enjoys a 2010 Chevy Suburban, purchased by the Department of Administration for $40,225, as well as the use of the Executive Residence. The Governor's mansion, with its 13 bathrooms, seven bedrooms, seven fireplaces and seven garden areas, comes at a taxpayer-funded cost of approximately $262,500 per year. The cost for the mansion includes a residence director, a chef, a gardener, a housekeeper, waitstaff and a “laundress and flower arranger.”

That might not be “real money” to the out-of-state special interest billionaires flooding Scott Walker’s campaign war chest with sleazy cash. But the average taxpayer, who pays Scott Walker’s salary and feels the pain of Walker’s failed policies and job-loss economy, probably thinks $171,715 is “real money.”