Is Mitt running for president again?

"The right" doesn't like Christie, so probably wouldn't see anything as a "hatchet job" on him.

 

Walker might not be a great candidate, but you're crazy if you think this is really going to hurt him.

As a rule, mission statements are high minded blather, and this one was particularly high minded blather:



Walker's point was that rather than trying to save the world -- and improve the human condition -- maybe the main focus of the UW system should be educating the students who attend the various schools under the University's umbrella.

And, one really good way of doing that at a reasonable cost would be for the professors to spend a little more time in the classroom, and less time working on the human condition.

This in particular has gotten push back, which is no surprise, since it hit a particularly raw nerve:

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker’s proposed $300 billion biennial budget cut to the University of Wisconsin system has not been taken well by university faculty, with many public university professors taking to the media to express their concerns. Walker got even more push back last week when he told WTMJ’s Charlie Sykes that “Maybe it’s time for faculty and staff to start thinking about teaching more classes and doing more work.” But as Media Trackers has uncovered, the critics of Walker are the very professors that make Walker’s point best.

In response to the outrage over Walker’s proposal and comments, Media Trackers looked into just how many classes the professors that have been critical of Walker actually teach.

Of the seven professors that Media Trackers looked at, we found that:

• • Combined the seven are teaching just 11 hours and 55 minutes a week this semester.
  • Combined the seven make $812,222 a year and teach just five classes this semester.
  • Only three teach any classes at all in the spring semester of 2015.
  • The three professors that actually teach this spring averaged just 1.66 classes per week with an average of 3.97 hours per week in the classroom.

Professors Critical of Gov. Walker Spend Little Time in Classroom

This is precisely the kind of thing that has earned him attacks from the left, and organized labor, and gotten him elected statewide three times in four years.

The left think these kind of stands are going to ruin him, and the public continues to reward him for them.

And, in contrast to Chris Christie, and his lack of a New Jersey success story to point to, Walker can point to successes that are a direct result of his policies.

 

Would the $2.2 billion budget deficit count as one of those "successes"?

 

What was the deficit before he took office?

Election 2010 - Next Wisconsin governor faces big deficit

 

Irrelevant. He came into office pounding the drums that HE KNEW HOW TO FIX IT, because of his magical free-market financial expertise.
Don't seem to be working out that way.

 

But, the deficit is lower. He is fixing it.

 

Nope, he said he would FIX IT.
It ain't fixed.
Fail.

 

C'mon Starman, what was the deficit when Walker took office?

The previous link I posted didn't even get it right:

The memos released at the end of a legislative session or after a budget often change by the time the governor and lawmakers take up the budget in February of odd-numbered years.

For instance, a memo released at the same point in 2010 put the expected shortfall facing Walker in 2011 at $2.5 billion, or more than a half-billion dollars less than it actually was.

This latest projected shortfall is the third highest predicted in a comparable fiscal bureau memo since 1997.
...
The more than $3 billion projected budget shortfall that Walker inherited as governor represented the gap between the state's expected tax revenue over the next two years and what state agencies were asking to spend over that period. The gap worked out to about 10% of the overall budget in the state's main account.

The new projected shortfall works out to about 5.8% of the 2015-'17 state budget.

To summarize, the state closed a roughly $3 billion shortfall in Walker's first budget, is now a little out of balance in his second budget — the current one — and is expected to face a shortfall in the next budget that is about half the size of the initial one.

Wisconsin state budget shortfall projected at nearly $1.8 billion

 

Hmmmm. So now we're taking into account a financial disaster handed down from a previous administration to the next one?

I thought we were supposed to quit doing that in about Jan. 2009.

 

Walker inherited a $3.2B deficit. The new deficit is $2.1B. And, that's a bad thing?

As for your Obama/Bush comparison, why don't you tell me what the Obama deficits are compared to the Bush years.

 

We could even compare the Bush deficits to the deficits he inherited.

Hmmmm.

 

OK. Sure.

Include that in your answer. Let me know if you can identify a trend.

And then, let me know if Walker's budgets follow the same trend.