folkbum's rambles and rants

by capper

Walker must have a distinct phobia when it comes to telling the truth. The news came out yesterday that his campaign is lying about his most recent commercial. The fallout is still coming in on that lie.

Today, the lies keep on flowing out of his mouth and keyboard. Walker did an "online chat" for JSOnline, in which he handpicked most of the questions to give himself softballs. He did let a few tougher questions through, which I am sure he thought he had the answers down pat. But his lies are pretty easy to observe to anyone paying attention.

One of the questions had to deal with transit. Here is the question, and Walker' response (emphasis mine):

Q: Emily Mullen of Milwaukee - You claim to be pro-transit, yet as County Executive you have presided over significant fare increases and crippling service cuts. In addition, while in the State Assembly you never voted to increase the State's support of transit. How do you reconcile your record with your alleged support of transit?

A: Scott Walker - Emily, When I came into office as County Executive, the state covered about 44% of the costs of the transit system and the county tax levy covered 14%. That is now 40% from the state while about 14% comes from the county tax levy. In the future, we need to control costs and get stable support from the state. In the Assembly, I voted for some increases in transit spending, but they were not always as much of an increase as some transit advocates wanted to spend. I don't claim to be pro- or anti- transit. I just tell you what I want to do with transit in the future. To control costs, I want to consolidate transit amongst the four systems in southeastern Wisconsin. To stabilize state support, I want to capture the growth in the CURRENT sales tax collected on automobile related sales and apply it to transit statewide. In this budget, that would be more than $100 million with about 60% coming back to the Milwaukee area.

As I have highlighted, Walker claims to be neither pro-transit nor anti-transit.

If he is truly not pro-transit, why did he film this commercial?




But he didn't do just that one commercial. He also has a web commercial that is even titled "Walker: Committed to Transit". I don't know about you, but that seems to me to be that he is pretty much claiming to be pro-transit.

He also spouts about some plan that he has to fix transit. A plan that would take the sales tax from everyone in the state, to just support our transit system. A plan that has been repeatedly proven to be a non-starter from day one. Yet he is hypocritical enough to accuse Senator Taylor of not being realistic about the plan.

But then again, remember he also claims not to be anti-transit. Then could he please explain why he is using such a poor business design of raising rates and cutting services. Does he think that he is actually doing anyone any favors. Or is he really trying to kill transit? After all, he is overseeing one of the few systems in the entire nation that hasn't seen a huge jump in ridership. In fact, due to his incompetence, Milwaukee buses are actually losing riders. And let us not forget that when he had a chance to approve a tax-neutral plan that would have boosted ridership, like it has elsewhere in the state and the country, Walker vetoed it.

He also claimed not to be anti-transit just one day after he cuts more routes.

In summary, Walker denies being pro-transit, but then puts out to commercials touting how he is pro-transit. Walker in the same sentence, denies being anti-transit, but then has given us six years of methodically trying to dismantle it.

Not only is Walker incompetent and a hypocrite, he is a lousy liar. And he is not even very good at his lying either.

Labels: 2008 Elections, Hypocrisy, Lena Taylor, lying, Scott Walker, Transit