The Milwaukee Business Journal is reporting that Assembly Speaker Robin Vos is backing away from Scott Walker’s central campaign promise to create 250,000 new private sector jobs.
Speaking at a Milwaukee Press Club Newsmakers luncheon on Monday, Vos stated, “It’s a very difficult road to hoe right now, to be very honest. But Governor Walker made that promise. Assembly Republicans — we did not make that promise.”
Assembly Republicans rallied behind Scott Walker’s decision to reject a plan to expand the state’s successful BadgerCare program that would’ve created 10,000 new jobs and supported Walker’s budget that cut more than $70 million from vocational and technical colleges – leaving critical jobs training programs funded at 1989 levels.
Last week, Robin Vos also threw his support behind Paul Ryan’s radical sequestration plan that will force severe across-the-board cuts and endanger hundreds of Wisconsin jobs. Wisconsin would see immediate cuts of $27.4 million, which would affect everything from senior meals and Head Start to jobs-training programs and Wisconsin’s regional airports.
Using Scott Walker’s preferred metric, the most recent jobs numbers available show Wisconsin ranked 42nd in the nation in job growth, trailing our neighbors in the Midwest like Michigan and Ohio. Forbes magazine ranks Wisconsin 2nd to last in the nation in economic growth prospects and one of the 10 worst states for business.
“Robin Vos wants to protect his own job, so it’s no great surprise that he’s trying to back away from Scott Walker’s promise to create 250,000 jobs,” Democratic Party of Wisconsin Chair Mike Tate said Tuesday. “Even Scott Walker’s administration is forecasting they won’t get half-way there. But it’s too little, too late, for Robin Vos – he can say the 250,000 jobs promise is all Walker’s, but the failure belongs to every Republican in Wisconsin.”
(Source: State of Wisconsin Budget in Brief, pg. 81)
