Walker Finally Pays Off Presidential Campaign Debt*

Good news!*

Scott Walker has finally, at long last, paid off his presidential campaign debt*. And it only took him sixteen months since he ended his short-lived, Quixotic bid.

Walker tried everything he could think of to raise that money. He begged for it. He sold his unwanted t-shirts and other campaign gear at bargain basement prices. He used every con he could think of. He even had other failed politicians, like Ted Cruz, begging for him.

But none of that worked. So what did Walker do to end his debt?*

He sold out his donors to the highest bidders:

In 2016, Walker brought in more than $823,000 by selling his donor list to other GOP candidates such as U.S. Sens. Ted Cruz of Texas and Marco Rubio of Florida; Ohio Gov. John Kasich; and Ben Carson, the nominee to serve as U.S. Housing and Urban Development secretary, Federal Elections Commission records show. His massive list of contributors was marketed aggressively for him by Granite Lists of Dublin, N.H.

The firm trumpeted the massive Walker list on its website as a "great test for conservative candidates, organizations, and anti-union causes" — a reference to the governor's signature law repealing most collective bargaining for most public employees in Wisconsin.

"One of the hottest donor lists to hit the market in years, the Walker for President list is made up of current Republican donors who are not content to sit on the sidelines. They are committed, generous, and sick and tired of the status quo. Actively engaged, they are motivated by the Republican principles of limited government and reform. This highly coveted list is as current as it gets," the website says.

In October alone, Walker pulled in more than $220,000 from Granite Lists' sales of his donor database. An employee of Granite Lists said the firm's founder, Stephen Meyers, was traveling and unavailable for comment.

Walker's campaign had no comment on the sales of the donor list or whether the governor had sold his list to President-elect Donald Trump. But the website Politico reported a year ago that some of these list sales were deals in which candidates using Walker's list to raise money were splitting the cash with him.

For the poor saps that gave him money, finding themselves bombarded with fundraising emails by right politicians at all levels and from all corners of the country must've been a rude awakening. No one wants an inbox full of spam.

Ah, but as the gentle reader knows, with all things Walker, there's more. There's always more.

Not only did Walker sell out his donors, he took a page from his buddy, Donald Trump, and shorted a lot of the vendors that were waiting for him to pay his bills:

In all, the 10 vendors were owed $374,100, but accepted payment of $333,500:

* Tusk Productions accepted a $3,800 cut.

* Superior Strategies accepted a $5,100 cut.

* Shirley and Banister Public Affairs accepted a $1,600 cut.

* Sharp Politics accepted a $6,000 cut.

* Prospect Strategic Communications accepted a $3,200 cut.

* Maverick Finance accepted a $1,000 cut.

* Maseng Communications accepted a $2,500 cut.

* Just Win Strategies accepted a $5,000 cut.

* Ground Game Strategies accepted a $2,500 cut.

* Drucker Lawhon accepted a $10,000 cut.

But guess what, there'e even more!

Walker also sold his endorsement for the highly unqualified Betsy DeVos to privatize the nation's schools:

Federal Election Commission records show that last year nine members of the DeVos family gave the maximum $2,700 donation apiece — more than $24,000 in all — to help pay down the campaign debt left over after Walker ended his GOP primary bid for president in September 2015.

For the DeVos family to spend that much money for an endorsement from somebody like Walker really shows how unqualified she is.

Now all Walker has to do his pay off his tens of thousands of dollars of personal debt and resolve the millions the state owes to creditors he's been stiffing.

*No, not really

Scott Walker's Political Fire Sale

By Jeff Simpson

Scott Walker, let everyone know that he finally paid off his campaign debt.  

After spending more than $7 million dollars in about three months, of drinking and spreading falsehoods, Scott Walker packed up his 0.0% support and went back to Wisconsin with his tail between his legs.   The one thing he brought back with him though, (was not his dignity that was long gone) but yet another million plus dollars of debt.  

When your accomplishments are few and far between, and you have massive debt, actually paying a bill is a big deal and worthy of a press release.  

However, like most things Scott Walker, things are not as we are told.  See he did not actually pay down all of his debt, he reneged on his contracts and screwing his vendors out of money they earned(earned being a stretch since they helped him reach an approval rating of 0%).

That, or a group of political consultants have been overcharging everyone else on the campaign trail!

Here is a list of them, with how much they have excused, or been screwed out of, their original bill.  I highly recommend that if anyone in the political world has hired these firms, they are obviously up for renegotiating a lower price or else have massively over billed you.  '
'

In addition, Walker got a hand out of debt from 10 consultants who wrote off about $40,600 owed by the former presidential candidate.
In a filing with the Federal Elections Commission, Walker's campaign said it had reached settlements with 10 vendors in which they agreed to accept less than the full amount owed to them to ensure they got some payment as soon as possible.
In all, the 10 vendors were owed $374,100, but accepted payment of $333,500:
* Tusk Productions (a fundraising firm that could not raise enough to pay themselves) accepted a $3,800 cut.
* Superior Strategies accepted a $5,100 cut.
* Shirley and Banister Public Affairs accepted a $1,600 cut.
* Sharp Politics accepted a $6,000 cut.
* Prospect Strategic Communications accepted a $3,200 cut.
* Maverick Finance (another fundraising firm that failed)accepted a $1,000 cut.
* Maseng Communications accepted a $2,500 cut.
* Just Win Strategies(insert own joke here) accepted a $5,000 cut.
* Ground Game Strategies accepted a $2,500 cut.
* Drucker Lawhon accepted a $10,000 cut. 

What is also interesting, is while firms he worked with had to eat about 41k of unpaid bills, Walker has $59000 in the bank still(you do that math).  

What I find curious is how can you hire ten different firms that all do the same thing, help promote your big and bold reforms, and when you take your show on the road you sink faster than a Wisconsin Cheese log.

What I am not the least bit surprised about, of the $8 Million dollars spent on campaigning in three months, none of it was in Wisconsin.  

As the Wisconsin long term debt account has found out, Mr. Walker has never been very good with numbers.  Unfortunately, our children will find that out the hard way!

Scott Walker Mines Fools Gold

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                     :

By Jeff Simpson

Scott Walker finally sold his house in Wauwatosa, thus allowing him to completely live on the taxpayers dime. Scott Walker moved his parents in to shield himself from protesters during his takeover of the state and recently moved them out.

However, in selling his house in this middle upper class neighborhood, he had to face some harsh realities.  That the Walker economy is not one that is very beneficial for personal financial success and that no one is in a hurry to move into Wisconsin.  

The Walkers, who paid $310,000 for the house in 2007 and sold it for $323.500 recently.  To no ones surprise, Scott Walker could not get the assessed value($359,900) of his house.   The person who buys his house will get the pleasure of paying $8,263 in taxes.  Thank Goodness for Walkers tax cuts or else it would be $8,266.  

He could not even get a rich donor to pony up a a half million to buy his house like a good Republican would, is he falling out of favor with the bosses?

What should we expect though from a person who is economically illiterate as Scott Walker anyway?  Everything he has touched has turned to fool's gold.

As Jud Lounsbury reports in the Progressive, Walker is still drowning in debt:

 However, according to Walker’s most recent Statement of Economic Interests (SEI), filed for the year of 2015, thatstatement wasn’t exactly true.In fact, since the time Walker made the comment that his personal finances were improving, they have actually gotten worse.According to the latest SEI, Walker still owes somewhere between $10,000 and $100,000 in high-interest credit card debt and has three conventional bank loans totaling well over $100,000, but he also added a fourth bank loan to his family:  A Wells Fargo loan that is defined as being between $5,000 and $50K.(Oh, and just for fun, I went back and looked at Walker’s previous pre-2014 SEI and—are you sitting down?—he’s had most of this “temporary” debt, including high interest credit card balances, for years now.)

With Walker's poor personal financial history, and massive personal debt, he would not be able to pass a background check to be hired at a financial institution and yet we trust him with our future?

Facing Crippling Debt, Scott Walker Puts House Up For Sale

Scott Walker is facing a mountain of debt.

His failed presidential campaign is a million dollars in the hole. Personally, he has tens of thousands of credit card debt. Even worse he must've missed some payments because he is paying 27% interest on that debt. Most of his debt probably came from the time he was privately paying silk-stockinged lawyers to defend him during the John Doe investigations - before he set up a legal defense fund and before the Kochs started picking up the tab.

On top of all that, he is helping his two unemployed sons with their student debt after sending them to Marquette University. (Apparently Walker recognizes that he's ruined the University of Wisconsin system and didn't want his boys to go there.)

Despite the fact that Walker has sent out numerous emails begging for money and makes $140,000 a year, he still can't make ends meet.

So what does he do?

He sends his parents packing out of his house and puts the place up for sale:

Gov. Scott Walker has put his home — the one in Wauwatosa, not the governor's mansion — up for sale.

The two-story, three-bedroom house has been listed by Delafield real estate agent Premar LLC for $338,000. The listing calls the home an "exceptional colonial!" that boasts "quintessential Tosa charm!" and mentions the in-ground swimming pool, bright white modern kitchen with Corian countertops and a front-entry sunroom.

Walker tweeted Sunday night about his sons: "Matt graduates from Marquette in May. Alex from UW next May. Like many empty nesters, we are looking to downsize our home."

It appears the home on N. 68th St., which was built in 1924, was listed on Saturday. Since purchasing it in March 2007 for $310,000, Walker has painted the home's exterior, rebuilt the chimney and replaced the pool liner. Walker's home features 2 1/2 baths and a full basement on a quarter-acre. Assessed at $359,900, the home's tax bill in 2013 was $8,381.

No open houses are scheduled, but prospective buyers can request a private showing. When reached by phone Sunday, Realtor Cathy Priem said she had no comment before hanging up.

I'm so glad that the local media clarified that it was his personal house and not the governor's mansion. We all know he sold the mansion to the Kochs and Bradley Foundation as soon as he took office.

Someone might want to check out the Madison area pawn shops to make sure that Walker hasn't hocked the mansion silverware.

Scott Walker - Always Backing The Losers

By Jeff Simpson 

It came out recently that like Wisconsin, Governor Scott Walker is mired in debt.   Where ever Scott Walker goes, he likes to put lots of spending on his credit card.  He personally owes Sears about $50,000.

You're not the only one in debt. According to state financial disclosure documents, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker reportedly owed between $10,000 and $100,000 to credit card companies in 2014. 
One of the cards listed was a Sears MasterCard that had up to $50,000 on it,The Daily Beast reports. 

A quick check of the retail market and you see that the Walker family appears to be the last remaining family still shopping at Sears.

Sears shares fell Thursday, after the struggling department store announced an adjusted net loss of $296 million—in line with the updated guidance it gave in November.The retailer also said it's accelerating the number of stores it plans to close this year, boosting its list from the 130 underperforming stores it announced in its second-quarter earnings release, to a total of 235 stores.

Like Wisconsin, Sears was once proud and well respected, then was taken over by a tea party loon who quickly proceeded to run their respective franchises to the ground.  

I guess if career politician Scott Walker has no idea who was even in office in Wisconsin, we probably should not expect to much from him in any other area of expertise.

Maybe when he realizes his dream of becoming President of the US is a pipe dream, we can use him as a crossing guard at a local school.

The neon can help cover up his horrendous wardrobe.  

President Obama's Fantasy Spending Spree!

You know the claim that Mitt and Gilligan continually made that President Obama created $5 Trillion dollars in new debt?  

“Back in 2008,” Paul Ryan (R- Wall St.) said, “candidate Obama called a $10 trillion national debt 'unpatriotic'—serious talk from what looked to be a serious reformer. Yet by his own decisions, President Obama has added more debt than any other president before him, and more than all the troubled governments of Europe combined. One president, one term, $5 trillion in new debt.”

 Like most things Paul Ryan has to say - it is NOT True(H/T Examiner.com):

Here is the complete breakdown!

Republican pundits love to say that the national debt has increased by $5 trillion because of President Obama. Factually, that statement is simply untrue. Let's examine the evidence.

Of the alleged $5 trillion, $1.6 trillion is related to costs of the Iraq/Afghanistan Wars. These were costs George W. Bush intentionally hid from the budget, and that President Obama allowed to be calculated when he assumed office.

Note that Obama could have continued to hide the bill as Bush did, passing it along to his successor.

President Bush was able to manipulate funding for the Iraq/Afghanistan wars using special emergency authorization bills. He did this because, as you recall, the Democrats were attempting to defund the war legislatively.

The overall point is simple: Obama, as president, authorized not one cent of that $1.6 trillion to be spent.

It has been previously reported by marketwatch.com that President Obama increased overall government spending by a smaller margin than any modern president, all the way to President Eisenhower.
Rex Nutting at marketwatch clarifies:

What people forget (or never knew) is that the first year of every presidential term starts with a budget approved by the previous administration and Congress. The president only begins to shape the budget in his second year. It takes time to develop a budget and steer it through Congress — especially in these days of congressional gridlock.

Over $1.4 trillion was spent on interest payments caused by the already standing debt.
Knowing that, let's examine the GOP's argument.

They say President Obama has spent too much, but 32% of the total amount they claim has been spent is a direct result of Republican presidential policies, and previous spending.

President Obama is stuck paying the bill for the previous GOP administrations of Reagan, H.W. Bush, and W. Bush. President Clinton left with a surplus if you recall, and added nothing to our debt. This point has been discussed constantly, and was even visited by President Obama's former Press Secretary Jay Carney during a press gaggle.

It is not disputed that the national debt was $10 trillion before President Obama took office.
The interest that is paid on the debt today was created by the very same people who now are attempting to blame the cost of that interest on the president. Do not allow yourself to be fooled, the GOP is attempting to blame the president for something they caused.

Now our journey of $5 trillion has been twiddled down to $2 trillion.

Another piece of the puzzle is that the CBO projected because of the Bush Era Tax Cuts, our government lost over $1.6 trillion in projected revenue. Of course, these unpaid taxes were supposed to create jobs for the middle class. The tax cuts have been in place for over 10 years, one would think our nation would be swimming in jobs. Yet, friends, that is not the case.
If reasonable tax rates were in place that were similar to those used while President Clinton was in office -- America's fiscal outlook would be more optimistic.

This leaves only $400 billion to be unaccounted for, and surely the fervor about reckless spending can not be over that amount because in that regard there are many instances where the GOP is equally guilty, if not more culpable. For example, our nation is still paying for the wasteful Medicare part D plan. Passed in 2003 and enacted in 2006, it has been estimated to cost a staggering $17 trillion in unfunded liabilities. Others put a more conservative price of $8 trillion including former head of the U.S. Government Accountability Office, David Walker.

$8 - $17 trillion in spending, and yet they say President Obama is the reckless spender? No matter how you look at the numbers, the GOP is guilty of at least one-and-a-half more spending, or three times as much spending. How can they claim to be the party of fiscal responsibility?

The overall premise of the argument has now been debunked, and the truth is quite clear; 88% of the debt which the GOP blames on President Obama was not created as a consequence of his policies. 

We all know who the truly big spender is :

 

Romney-Ryan in 3 Minutes!

Thanks Robert Reich for some sanity and truth!