Posted on 06/04/2015 3:00:58 PM PDT by conservativejoy
Nearly 60% of WEDC funds have gone to Walker, GOP donors
Posted: May 30, 2014 1:14 PM CDT
Updated: Jun 14, 2014 1:18 PM CDT
By Greg Neumann
The article at this link provides a detailed report of taxpayer money awarded to Walker donors through the agency he created and Chaired, WEDC.
The link to the full report is at the end of the article.
An Audit of WEDC was just completed and has been turned over to prosecutors at the end of May this year. The Prosecutor's office delayed their investigation until receiving the completed Audit Findings.
I have never identified my attacks with Cruz. I think Crus is an honest enough person that he understands the need for careful evaluation of what concerns are out there about Any candidate.
Reality Check! This is not my investigation. I have merely reported what is going on in Wisconsin and provided articles from that state.
No rational person is going to hold Ted Cruz responsible for the pickle Walker has gotten himself into. Walker will have to accept responsibility for his own actions and whatever the prosecutors office determines from their investigation.
I don’t think the truth will hurt Cruz. He seems to have a strong grasp of it.
I first think of youth in these cases.
I campaigned for McGovern around my base in 1972.
Nothing they do or say surprises me.
Really, a real report. I'm impressed. Here's who published this report. Someone who claims to be a conservative probably won't associated with this kind of an outfit. Maybe they have good membership gifts.
One Wisconsin Now
Organization
Overview
One Wisconsin Now (OWN) is a liberal attack group that masquerades as a benevolent, non-partisan “watchdog” organization. Labeled by the MacIver Institute as “the court jester of the liberal movement,” One Wisconsin Now is nothing more than a labor union-funded front group that advocates for the extremes of liberal politics. The organization has even taken to questionable election campaign tactics during the highly partisan recall attempt of Republican Governor Scott Walker.
Voter Fraud by Another Name
Governor Scott Walker became public enemy number one for Wisconsin unions after he pushed for and signed legislation severely limiting the power of public sector unions in 2011. The attempt to recall Walker (and several Republican members of the legislature) thrust Wisconsin into the national spotlight. The well-funded effort to oust him from office was led by Democrats; to trigger a recall election, Democrats and their labor union allies had to obtain 540,208 signatures from “qualified electors.” Gov. Walker and his staff then had only 10 days to verify that that the hundreds of thousands of petition signers were actually valid.
Obtaining nearly half a million signatures is no easy feat – unless of course you exploit loopholes in state election law. Enter One Wisconsin Now and its highly disingenuous tactics.
OWN sought to bolster the number of petition signatures (thus making Walker’s task more cumbersome) by seemingly encouraging individuals to sign multiple times: The group wrote and promoted the fact that “You can circulate or sign a recall petition even if you have already signed another recall petition.” OWN explained that Wisconsin election law does not ban the signing of multiple recall petitions, and that even if it’s detected, there is no punishment other than disregarding the extra signatures (the original signature remains valid).
In the end, anti-Walker groups gathered more than 900,000 signatures, forcing a recall election that Walker would ultimately go on to win.
A Highly Partisan Attack Group
To feign impartiality, One Wisconsin Now masquerades as “non-partisan,” and misleadingly explains on its website that the group is “not affiliated with nor works with any political party. One Wisconsin Now does not endorse nor oppose candidates for political office.” That may be how the far-left organization wants to be perceived, but in practice this couldn’t be farther from the truth.
Scot Ross, executive director of OWN, boldly claims that “We don’t tell people how to vote,” and that “We don’t advocate for the election or defeat of any candidate.” Despite this, the group published a misnamed “Fact Sheet” on the “12 Ways Scott Walker Failed Wisconsin,” and even paid for anti-Walker banners to be flown by planes during football games.
And despite Ross’ insistence that “We don’t advocate for the election or defeat of any candidate,” Ross included a contribution page link in a blog post leading up to the Walker recall election that read “Yes, I want to recall Scott Walker.”
Union Funded
Since its inception in 2006, One Wisconsin Now has received more than $150,000 in contributions from labor unions, much of which came from the national headquarters of unions such as the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL–CIO) and Service Employees International Union (SEIU). In 2009 alone, the AFL-CIO poured $50,000 into OWN for “political activities.”
You really work hard at this................
"WE"??
Who is we...do say?
You are gaining a rep here....keep on it!!
So...who do you work for?
The Republicans who are posting comments with these articles are not dismissing this. Many of them are disgusted with how the WEDC has been run. A lot of them can’t believe Walker has not already been charged. Of course, the prosecutor only got the file and Audit results at the end of May.
Even if Walker is not charged, the WEDC has been grossly mismanaged under his Chairmanship. All of these factors contributed the legislature removing him from that position earlier this week.
Wisconsin ranks 38th in the nation in jobs growth. It is in last place in the Midwest. WEDC gave well over 500 million dollars to Walker’s donors and this agency he created can only account for a handful over 7,000 jobs for that amount of tax dollars. The number of jobs these companies outsourced overseas has to be deducted from that figure.
Not the kind of incompetent performance we want to see go nationwide.
The figures in the report were taken from the just completed bipartisan Audit.
You are not listening. Good bye.
It is my goal to get an honest person into the White House. I believe other Freepers share that goal.
Several here have contacted me privately and seem to be recognizing the need to keep and open mind and exercise some objectivity on the current Walker situation. Kudos to them.
We keep saying that in order to defeat the GOPe establishment pick, we must unite behind one candidate. I think we can agree that we want that candidate to be worthy of our trust and support.
Investigations aside, Walkers dismal jobs performance and the current 2 billion dollar projected deficit are enough to make any honest assessment of his record consider whether we want to take that performance nationwide.
Yes kudos to them. It won't be me since I am not your "friend". But you have gained some respect from others with your insights and enthusiasm and, needless to say, faith and that is why they contacted you. For the record I get and send maybe one freepmail a month usually about something trivial.
For my part I will keep watching for misstatements or speculation on your part. Example from above: WEDC was "grossly mismanaged" by Walker. That is speculation on your part combined with enemy talking points. We do not know that, so don't make claims like that.
Hmmm. Allow me to parse that statement. If I work for a company and decide to give money to a political candidate and later the company I worked for is given a grant then this is corruption according to implications of this report. I gave a bribe.
Except of course that is rather stretching it.
Did my boss tell me to give or did I give though the business? The article does not say.
How much were the donations?
The article does not say.
What was the percentage given by employees and what was the percentage of business owners?
The article does not say.
What is the percentage over all of business that might be eligible to be awarded money from this fund that donated to Walker?
Again the article does not say.
In fact the article says very little but implies a great deal.
And those are questions that came to me in under two minutes after reading the article.
Interesting that author who supposedly is a trained reported did not apparently think of even one of them.
OH! Interesting.
I missed this the first time around.
Apparently it is not just donations to Walker but to any one who is GOP.
Fascinating!
So if you gave a donation to say, Herman Cain and the company you worked for got funds then you are included in this audit as one of "Almost 60 percent".
Hmmmm
It remains to be seen what the prosecutor will make of this. He only got the audit file at the end of May. He has only begun to analyze that and the other evidence.
There are in fact, two BCI employees that have alleged that they were asked to make donations to Walker and then submit a claim to the company for reimbursement.
It was in one of the articles I read and should be easy to find with google.
If you read the article it is clear. (excerpt)
MADISON (WKOW) — A liberal advocacy group reports that nearly 60 percent of the financial assistance money awarded by the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation (WEDC) has gone to businesses whose owners or employees have donated money to the campaign of Gov. Scott Walker (R-Wisconsin) or the Republican Governors Association (RGA).
WEDC officials do not dispute that statistic, but insist “contributions absolutely play no role in determining which companies receive awards from WEDC.”
One Wisconsin Now found that 192 donors associated with businesses receiving WEDC grants donated a total of just over $1 million directly to Gov. Walker’s campaign and another $1.1 million to the RGA. The RGA is a special interest group that spent $13 million to help get Gov. Walker elected in 2010 and then
Companies give money to everybody and I bet those same companies gave to Democrats also!!
The RGA spent $3 million in 2010, not $13 million. See https://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/totals.php?id=D000021051
The issue is that Walker created an agency, WEDC, from which he paid hundreds of millions of dollar to donors, supposedly loans, that have not been paid back, nor have the jobs that they were paid to create materialize. There has been no accountability.
Many of these companies did not qualify for the loans and the amounts allocated exceeded the limits set for any of these loans. In addition these same companies outsourced thousand of jobs overseas instead of creating jobs here.
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