{"id":168618,"date":"2015-07-27T18:26:10","date_gmt":"2015-07-27T18:26:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/?p=168618"},"modified":"2015-07-28T01:09:29","modified_gmt":"2015-07-28T01:09:29","slug":"scott-walkers-big-lie","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/editorials\/scott-walkers-big-lie\/","title":{"rendered":"Scott Walker’s Big Lie"},"content":{"rendered":"

Eric Zuesse<\/span><\/p>\n

I have written lots of articles about\u00a0Barack Obama\u2019s lying.<\/span><\/a>\u00a0To expose lies by Republicans is not at all a partisan matter for me; it\u2019s about my only commitment, which is to the truth; and here is the truth about Scott Walker: Like Obama, he\u2019s a liar; he plays the public for suckers, in order to get their votes. This isn\u2019t democracy, serving the public; it\u2019s theft of power away from the public, by means of fraud.<\/span><\/p>\n

Walker\u2019s main claim to fame regarding his record as Wisconsin\u2019s Governor (inaugurated 3 January 2011) is that he improved education, as shown by his state\u2019s ACT test scores being now the second-highest in the nation, and by their having risen since he became Governor; and both of those statements are lies. Typical examples of him asserting these cardinal lies about Wisconsin\u2019s educational performance are here:<\/span><\/p>\n

his\u00a0State of the State address<\/span><\/a>\u00a0on Jan. 13, 2015:<\/span><\/p>\n

“On top of our economic success, we empowered local school boards to hire and fire based on merit and pay based on performance, so they can keep the best\u00a0and the brightest in the classroom. And it\u2019s working. Over the past four years, graduation rates are up. Third grade reading scores are up. ACT scores are up\u00a0\u2013 and Wisconsin now ranks second in the country.”<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

Then, his Conservative Political Action Conference\u00a0speech<\/span><\/a>, on Feb. 26, 2015:<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cOur school scores are better. Our ACT scores are second best in the country. Graduation rate\u2019s up over the past four years. Reading scores are up over the past four years, because we put the power back in the hands of the hard working taxpayers and the people they elect to run their school boards.\u201d<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

You can see the actual<\/i> state-by-state current performance\u00a0here,<\/span><\/a>\u00a0and, as you can see there, it\u2019s a lie for him to say, \u201cOur ACT scores are second best in the country,\u201d and, \u201cWisconsin now ranks second in the country\u201d on ACT scores. Wisconsin\u2019s \u201cAverage Composite Score\u201d shown there is 22.2. The top composite score was Massachusetts, at 24.3. Tied for second and third were Connecticut and New Hampshire at 24.2. \u00a0Fourth was Maine at 23.6. Fifth was New York at 23.4. Tied for sixth and seventh were Delaware and Vermont at 23.2. Eighth was New Jersey at 23.1. Ninth was Washington at 23.0. Tied for tenth and eleventh were Minnesota and Rhode Island at 22.9. Twelfth was Virginia at 22.8. Thirteenth was Pennsylvania at 22.7. Fourteenth was Maryland at 22.6. Fifteenth was Idaho at 22.4. Sixteenth was California at 22.3. Seventeenth was Wisconsin at 22.2.<\/span><\/p>\n

An accurate statement (however meaningless it might have been) on this would have been: \u201cWisconsin now ranks seventeenth.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Furthermore, his allegation that \u201cOur school scores are better,\u201d and that, \u201cit\u2019s working,\u201d is also a gross overstatement, at best. The reality is shown here:<\/span><\/p>\n

http:\/\/www.act.org\/newsroom\/data\/2014\/pdf\/profile\/Wisconsin.pdf<\/a><\/span>\u00a0page 9<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Screen<\/a><\/p>\n

Before he came into office, English was at 21.5, and now it\u2019s 21.6. Math was 22.0, and now it\u2019s 22.0. Reading was 22.3, and now it\u2019s 22.4. Science was 22.2, and now it\u2019s 22.3. Composite was 22.1, and now it\u2019s 22.2.<\/span><\/p>\n

Here\u2019s the nationwide trend during that very same period:<\/span><\/p>\n

http:\/\/www.act.org\/newsroom\/data\/2014\/pdf\/profile\/National2014.pdf<\/a><\/span>\u00a0page 10<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Screen<\/a><\/p>\n

The composite national score has remained unchanged at 21.0.<\/span><\/p>\n

So: while Wisconsin\u2019s score improved by 22.2\/22.1, or 0.45%, the nationwide score has improved by 0.00%. Scott Walker has nothing to brag about on that matter. An accurate statement from him on it would have been:<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cDuring the four years since I became Governor, Wisconsin\u2019s composite ACT scores have improved by 0.45%, whereas the nationwide change was zero: 0.00%.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

His claim that Wisconsin\u2019s composite score \u201cnow ranks second in the country\u201d is a blatant lie, which is aimed only at people whom he can fool \u2013 people who trust this particular liar (including lots of fundamentalist Christians who are accustomed to taking things on pure faith). But his claim that his policies on education are \u201cworking\u201d is so gross an exaggeration that it might as well be considered to be as fraudulent as is his claim that Wisconsin \u201cnow ranks second in the country.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

So: his Big Lie is about education \u2013 that he has improved it. But what about his second-biggest claim: that he has improved the state\u2019s economy?<\/span><\/p>\n

His State of the State Address on January 13th said: “<\/span>If you remember nothing else, remember this:\u00a0more people are working, while fewer are unemployed<\/span><\/a>.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Here is the reality:<\/span><\/p>\n

http:\/\/data.bls.gov\/timeseries\/SMS55000000000000001<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

\"Screen<\/a><\/p>\n

As you can see, the uptick started a year before he became Governor, and continued in virtually a straight line thereafter. But it\u2019s nothing to brag about, because this was also the national trend, when Barack Obama came into office two years before Walker and employment increased after George W. Bush\u2019s crash. Here is that national trend:<\/span><\/p>\n

http:\/\/www.bls.gov\/ces\/cesvininfo.htm<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

\"Screen<\/a><\/p>\n

As you can see there, the national figures improved by a ratio of around 140\/131, or 7%, while Wisconsin\u2019s figures improved by a ratio of 2882\/2741 or 5.1%, throughout Walker\u2019s Governorship, from January 2011 till now. Wisconsin increased employment at a rate significantly below the national average.<\/span><\/p>\n

Bottom-line: Walker is a con-artist.<\/span><\/p>\n

But that\u2019s nothing new: During the 2012 Presidential campaign, Mitt Romney\u2019s great claim-to-fame was that he \u201ccreated 100,000 jobs at Bain.\u201d\u00a0As I showed, on 13 June 2012,<\/span><\/a>\u00a0“Romney’s claim to have produced 100,000 jobs at Bain is a flat-out lie. Even his Staples investment didn’t produce any jobs, but reduced jobs — and that’s his best case.”<\/span><\/p>\n

We can\u2019t have democracy under such circumstances; all that any nation can have when lying is permitted in politics is a race-to-the-bottom in which the biggest liar competes at an enormous political advantage over his competitors, and in which the winners are actually representing not the public but representing the aristocrats who fund politicians\u2019 campaigns. That\u2019s\u00a0an aristocratically controlled nation,<\/span><\/a>\u00a0not a democratically controlled one. And (as that link shows), it describes today\u2019s United States. However, today\u2019s liar-in-chief, Barack Obama, actually\u00a0urged the U.S. Supreme Court to keep it that way, and they did.<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

NOTE for readers who want to dig deeper:<\/b>\u00a0Wisconsin also ranked\u00a017th on overall ACT scores in 2010<\/span><\/a>,\u00a0just before Walker became the Governor. Another point: a reader of the present article raised the issue that “The\u00a0ACT score rankings by state that Walker refers to are for\u00a0states where 50%+ of the students take the test,\u201d but Walker\u2019s speeches don\u2019t say that; only his press office does when journalists question them about his \u201csecond best in the nation\u201d claim. So, what Walker (through his press office) is then telling journalists is to interpret his words in a different way than the audiences he\u2019s making his speeches to will naturally be interpreting them. That\u2019s deceptive, in itself: honest politics is common language only, and no journalist should fall for Walker’s tactic of deception. Furthermore, whereas with SAT scores there is\u00a0a strong tendency<\/span><\/a>\u00a0for states that administer it to over half of the students to post lower scores on it than do states that administer if to only a smaller percentage of their students, the same\u00a0isn\u2019t true with ACT scores<\/span><\/a>. Walker\u2019s press office is just lying. Actually, the only scientific comparisons of educational performances of the various states are in the international comparisons as tested in PISA and NAEP, which use random samples of students, instead of self-selected samples; and, as\u00a0Massachusetts\u2019s teachers\u2019 union<\/span><\/a>\u00a0proudly noted, “A 2011 Harvard University<\/span><\/a> study found that if Massachusetts was its own country, its students perform on the same level as some of the most educated countries in the world. Just a glance at the study shows Massachusetts topping the state-by-state comparisons at almost every level.\u201d In that comparison reported by Harvard, Massachusetts scored high; Wisconsin scored fairly low, in the “Percentage of students in the\u00a0class of 2011 at the proficient level in math in U.S. states and\u00a0foreign.\u201d This was in Walker\u2019s first year as Governor; and, as has been noted here, Wisconsin\u2019s educational performance has remained unchanged from that time till now. What cannot be denied is that Scott Walker\u2019s cardinal claim to having been a good Governor is based on lies that, when journalists ask his press office to explain, he decorates with other types of deceptions. He\u2019d be nowhere without lies.<\/span><\/p>\n

———-<\/span><\/p>\n

Investigative historian Eric Zuesse is the author, most recently, of They\u2019re Not Even Close: The Democratic vs. Republican Economic Records, 1910-2010<\/i><\/span><\/a>,<\/i> and of \u00a0<\/i>CHRIST\u2019S VENTRILOQUISTS: The Event that Created Christianity<\/i><\/span><\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Eric Zuesse I have written lots of articles about\u00a0Barack Obama\u2019s lying.\u00a0To expose lies by Republicans is not at all a partisan matter for me; it\u2019s about my only commitment, which is to the truth; and here is the truth about Scott Walker: Like Obama, he\u2019s a liar; he plays the public for suckers, in order […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1254,"featured_media":168622,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[461,1622],"tags":[115,30,96,29,535,804,540,3366,49,40],"class_list":{"0":"post-168618","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-editorials","8":"category-featured","9":"tag-barack-obama","10":"tag-big-brother","11":"tag-cover-up","12":"tag-democrats","13":"tag-global-news","14":"tag-politics-2","15":"tag-republicans","16":"tag-scott-walker","17":"tag-usa-news","18":"tag-white-house"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/168618","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1254"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=168618"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/168618\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/168622"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=168618"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=168618"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=168618"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}