WEDC must be replaced
Gov. Scott Walker and Reed Hall, head of the Wisconsin Economic Development Corp.: Robert Kraig is calling for WEDC to be disbanded.
Associated Press
Gov. Scott Walker and Reed Hall, head of the Wisconsin Economic Development Corp.: Robert Kraig is calling for WEDC to be disbanded.
By Robert Kraig
May 27, 2015
The Journal Sentinel recently editorialized that the well-documented problems at Gov. Scott Walker's partially privatized jobs agency are primarily issues of "execution," and that the "concept" behind the troubled agency is "sound."
While there is virtually nobody left defending the performance of the Wisconsin Economic Development Corp., there is a pronounced tendency among elected officials and other opinion leaders to propose only piecemeal reforms. The various changes proposed so far by Walker, Republican legislative leaders and leading Democrats who serve on the agency's board do not address the root of the problem.
The problem with WEDC is more fundamental than incompetent staff, lax oversight, lack of transparency, slippery job creation claims and the troubling possibility that some corporations received loans and tax credits as political favors.
The root cause of WEDC's troubles is the very idea that Wisconsin's precious job creation dollars should be handed out to well-connected corporations with less public control and transparency. It has turned out that glib sounding words such as "flexibility" and "streamlined" used to justify the creation of WEDC really meant weak standards and little accountability.
Not only is Wisconsin lagging behind the rest of the country in job creation, the jobs being added in our state are mostly poverty-wage occupations, according to the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Center on Economic Development. The job quality crisis is so severe that the UW-Madison Institute for Research on Poverty recently found that poverty levels are increasing in Wisconsin even as employment increases.
To be fair, these are challenges facing other states as well and were not addressed by the old Department of Commerce, either. What is striking about WEDC is the lack of any comprehensive strategy to address the decline in family-supporting jobs.
Many of the practices attributed to bad management at WEDC are rooted in its approach to economic development. WEDC continues to allow corporations receiving public job creation dollars to outsource Wisconsin jobs, and stubbornly refuses to require proof that promised jobs are actually being created. WEDC's highly questionable job creation and retention claims are a product of an ideological assumption that what is good for corporations seeking state subsidies also is good for workers.
The only real solution to the scandal of WEDC is to close the failed agency, and replace it with a fully accountable public agency. I am not proposing returning to the old Department of Commerce, which under previous Republican and Democratic governors was administratively competent but also lacked a serious economic strategy.
WEDC should be replaced with a public agency with the explicit mission of dramatically increasing the number of family supporting jobs in Wisconsin, especially in the most economically challenged areas of the state where the gap between the number of workers and the availability of quality jobs is most severe. The agency's name should reflect its mission, something like the Department of Full Employment or the Department of Economic Opportunity.
This new job agency should be required to develop evidence-based strategies for rebuilding the middle class and opening it to all who are currently shut out. There should be clear benchmarks and reporting, so the people of the state can hold their state government accountable to this goal. There also should be rigorous accountability.
According to a recent report by the Pew Charitable Trust, since 2000, Wisconsin's middle class has shrunk more than any other state, and real median household income has declined a stunning 14.7%. This decline in job quality is damaging the entire economy. It's time to scrap the failed WEDC experiment, and begin to develop real strategies for building a 21st century economy that works for everyone.
Robert Kraig is executive director of Citizen Action of Wisconsin, a Milwaukee-based statewide membership group that advocates for a fair economy and guaranteed affordable health care. www.citizenactionwi.org
-——Robert Kraig is executive director of Citizen Action of Wisconsin
OMG You’re quoting a leading lefty group...
But Clark is right to point out that Citizen Action really doesn’t know what they’re talking about when it comes to investment, business, and how jobs are created.
http://www.rightwisconsin.com/dailytakes/212221831.html
Big Labor front group Citizen Action of Wisconsin tried to rig another election this week - but so far they are failing miserably.
http://www.rightwisconsin.com/dailytakes/236481391.html
The liberal smear machine is gearing up by launching costly and expensive fishing expeditions looking for dirt on every formidable conservative, from Scott Walker to State Rep. Leah Vukmir, who is running for state senate.
http://www.620wtmj.com/blogs/charliesykes/84406787.html
Hey, you really need to google Workers World Party, Daily Communist, and be sure to check Obama for America!
Lying and posting lefty sludge, well done my pet troll.
So, is this an admission that you have been spouting the “outsourced over 15,000 jobs” line here as if it were true fact, but you were really making it up?
Source it, or admit it is a lie.