Tuesday, March 26, 2013

Stats! Boom! Baa!

Thanks to a tip by our own Jeff Simpson, we see some site called the Tea Party Perspective* which, with no sense of irony, cites an article by the Koch/Bradley MacIver (Anything But A) News Service about Scott Walker's jobs numbers:
The Senate Committee on Economic Development and Local
Government held a joint hearing with the Assembly Committee on Jobs, Economy and Mining on Tuesday to discuss economic indicators in Wisconsin.

Secretary Reggie Newson, Department of Workforce Development, and John Koskinen, Chief Economist for the Department of Revenue, both gave testimony that Wisconsin is heading in the right direction.

This is in contrast to two years ago where Wisconsin had lost over 150,000 jobs, Newson explained. “Based on all the indicators we look at, the state is moving in the right direction. We are adding jobs here in the state of Wisconsin.”
Yeah, because two Walker acolytes who jobs depend on trying to sell Walker's false bill of goods is sooooo reliable.

But the funnies start later in this piece of propaganda:
Secretary Newson explained that the numbers should be accurate and not be politicized. “That’s why we are here today, to make sure we provide accurate jobs information.” Newson was part of a group that urged BLS to revise the numbers to a third quarter benchmark because the original statistics were found to be inaccurate.

In January, BLS ranked Wisconsin 44th in private sector job growth, a statistic that Democrats like to bring up in opposition of Governor Walker’s policies. Representative Mary Williams (R-Medford) asked Koskinen if this ranking was still accurate with the revised numbers. Koskinen stated that, “I would no longer conclude it would be 44.”

Though Koskinen could not give an exact ranking based on the revised numbers, he explained the Wisconsin had some of the largest gains in the country over the previously reported numbers. The improvement in the revised data was better than all of Wisconsin’s neighboring states.
OK, just try to ignore the fact that Walker's people are saying that the jobs numbers shouldn't be politicized even as they are politicizing them. Go ahead. Just try.

They also failed to mention that all the other states were moved up by the same ratio, despite Koskinen's claims to the contrary, meaning we're still dead last in the Midwest.

I won't go into how even PolitiFact, which often tries to stretch all credibility to support Walker, isn't buying this bunch of malarkey that Walker's jobs are anything but pitiful.

But, c'mon people! We live in Fitzwalkerstan. We know the truth.

We know that Walker's agenda is not working and will never work. Despite what Walker's lackeys might say, the simple fact is that when it comes to job creation, Wisconsin is lagging behind the nation, every other state in the Midwest. Hell, we are worse than all but six other states in the nation.

To further exemplify just how bad things are here in Fitzwalkerstan, look at what Walker and his corporate media backers don't want you to see. Things like the January 2013 State Coincident Indexes, which shows the economic changes for three months:


As you can plainly see, the only states doing worse that Wisconsin is Maine and Alaska.

I do agree with Walker's puppet Koskinen on one thing - we're probably not still 44th.  We've probably dropped below that or soon will.

And Walker thinks he's got a snowball's chance in hell of being president with a record like this?


*I think we all can just imagine what the perspective of someone being teabagged would be.

2 comments:

  1. Careful, this could be a set up. Since Walker knows- the Kochs have already assured him- that he is certain to be in the White House in 2016 he is purposely under-performing so that Speaker Vos will be able to rescue this great State. Guv Vos will quickly populate his Gubernatorial staff with divorce attorneys, ex-legislature girlfriend(s) and boyfriends and will bring true prosperity and integrity back to Madison. And someday my friends 250,000 new jobs will be created; we just need to find an official agency that knows how to count- a daunting task.

    ReplyDelete
  2. The Philly Fed's coincident index growth puts us at 40th in the nation since December 2010 (cf 9th place for December 2009 - December 2010), and the 'tremendous takeoff' since the recall election puts us in 47th place.

    ReplyDelete