Tales From The Fridge: Walker's Salary

This is part of an ongoing series to see how true Scott Walker's claim to having kept all of his 2002 campaign promises really is.

In 2002, Scott Walker made two promises regarding his salary as county executive.

One, which was one of his own, read:

Voluntarily reduce own salary to $78,850, within 30 days.

The other, which was part of the CRG platform:

Immediately sign a waiver of all salary and benefit increases that were enacted after Jan. 1, 2000.

First one of the bat and we find that he did not keep these promises.

As we had discussed earlier this year, Walker's first commercial bragged about giving some of his salary back, which he did do. But he did not reduce his salary.

In fact, due to a law written into the County Code of Ordinances, the county executive receives a raise every year as a cost of living adjustment.

So in reality, his salary has actually increased by a few thousand dollars while he has been county executive.

To make this false promise even more egregious, for the last two years, while people are losing their jobs and their homes, including the county workers that Walker laid off, he forewent his habit of giving his salary back, effectively giving himself a $50,000 a year raise.

He promptly used that money to buy a new house and a large swimming pool. Nice way to throw it in the face of the people losing their homes.

Now, to be fair, Walker couldn't legally cut his salary in the middle of a term. However, there was nothing preventing him from making a push to have it cut back at the beginning of his next term, which would have been only two years later.

End result: Two promises made, zero promises kept.