10/25/11 – Wisconsin’s Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald of Juneau says a dismal employment forecast should get both parties to stop playing politics and start focusing on jobs. The state Revenue Department said Wisconsin would only add 136-thousand private sector jobs by 2014. That’s 43-thousand less than the Revenue Department’s last forecast in June. And it falls far short of Governor Scott Walker’s promise to create a quarter-million private-sector jobs by 2015. So far, the state had only added 29-thousand jobs since Walker took office – and at that pace, Wisconsin will fall 100-thousand jobs short of the governor’s goal by 2015. Walker spokesman Cullen Werwie said the Badger State needs to quote, “break through the wet blanket of the national economy.” He said the governor’s current session on jobs would adopt policies that improve the state’s economic climate. But Democrats have blasted the G-O-P for advancing measures which have little to do with creating jobs – things like cutting off health insurance coverage for most abortions, and firing teachers if their students don’t achieve. Fitzgerald says Wisconsin cannot divorce itself from the national economy – but he says the G-O-P remains focused on job-creation efforts like approving the new iron ore mine in Ashland-and-Iron counties, helping start-up businesses get venture capital, and cutting down on business red tape and frivolous lawsuits.
