Try to follow along as Scott Walker, Fred Luber (MacIver Institute Chair, Super Steel Chair, and Scott Walker Campaign Finance Co-Chair), and right-wing leaders play politics with job creation. Let’s watch.

If there’s one thing new Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce board chair Tom Howatt and his corporate cronies at WMC enjoy more than anything, it’s a big ole handout from the government.

One of the more rousing cheers during the State of the Union last night came after President Obama called out the ridiculous ruling from the Supreme Court last week that threw open the door to a new flood of corporate cash into campaigns. The Bush boys, Justices Roberts and Alito, swore up and down during confirmation they weren’t “judicial activists,” wouldn’t “legislate from the bench” and then promptly overturned campaign finance legislation already passed in state after state, and essentially halting efforts in Wisconsin to toughen up existing laws.

The failed conservative economic policies of giving endless tax breaks to corporations and the rich finally got a full-throated repudiation last night as voters in Oregon passed a tax increase on the wealthy and corporations to fill that state’s gaping budget hole.

Voters sick and tired of watching corporations get rich while state services and funding for public education are cut endlessly finally stood up and said ‘ENOUGH!’ Despite the typical crying and scare-tactics from corporate interests that somehow paying their fair share will “kill jobs,” Oregonians knew better. Many corporations in Oregon have skirted taxes for years, often paying the minimum tax allowed by Oregon law, ten bucks. Ten dollars – yeah cause that’s paying a fair share for the state services that corporations so willingly use.

Nine out of ten times isn’t just a coincidence; it’s a pattern of behavior.

And nine out of the last ten years, silver-spoon fed real estate developer Terrence Wall paid no state income tax. Because one of Madison’s wealthiest business men didn’t make any money in the last ten years. Right.

When T-Wall’s income tax doge was first revealed, we only new about the last five years, and T-Wall chalked up his non-existent tax payments to the down economy. But that certainly doesn’t explain his lack of tax payments over the last 10 years. T-Wall tried to explain it away by claiming he paid his fair share in business taxes, but we haven’t uncovered any proof of that, nor has T-Wall provided any.

The polling project between the UW-Madison Political Science department and the state’s shrillest right-wing, corporate-friendly think tank has turned out to be as suspicious as we first feared.

Documents obtained by One Wisconsin Now through the state’s open records law reveal that political considerations were front and center in the decision making surrounding the polling project and the publication of the poll’s results. The results of the poll showed statewide opposition to private school vouchers, but the press release from both UW and the Wisconsin Policy Research Institute (WPRI) played up figures that showed support for school vouchers in Milwaukee.

According to the email we obtained, in the day before the release of materials on the poll, the head of WPRI pushed to have the statewide opposition to vouchers to be removed and to use the Milwaukee County numbers instead. When UW professor Ken Goldstein pushed back, saying the change would go against standard operating procedure, George Lightbourn of WPRI pushed back even harder, saying:

“I’m not concerned about journalists. I’m concerned about the Scott (sic) Ross types who would enjoy being able to portray WPRI’s own data as showing lack of support for choice. I know it’s a pain in the ass but I’ve been burned a couple of times and I don’t need to be the one holding the gas can.”

Wisconsin Environment slammed the right-wing Wisconsin Policy Research Institute (WPRI) yesterday about their inaccurate and misleading report about the Governor’s initiatives to grow the renewable energy industry and create green jobs.

Here’s an excerpt from Wisconsin Environment’s report:

“…the WPRI report fails to acknowledge the many obvious economic and other benefits that would result from a broad effort to repower Wisconsin with clean energy.

Among the long list of benefits (apparently) not considered in the analysis are the following:

1.) Avoided costs of electricity generation, transmission and distribution infrastructure resulting from reduced energy demand or the incorporation of on-site renewable generation.

2.) Increased income for Wisconsin farmers resulting from increased use of biofuels and the potential to lease lands for wind turbines and other forms of renewable energy development.

3.) Health benefits (including reductions in absenteeism, early mortality and possibly health care costs) from avoided fossil fuel-related pollution, including reductions in pollutants that form smog and soot, and mercury deposition in waterways.

4.) Avoided economic impacts of global warming in Wisconsin, including predicted changes that threaten to reduce the productivity of agriculture, increase the possibility of dangerous floods, shift the composition of Wisconsin forests, affect the winter recreation industry, and more.

5.) Reductions in the risk to individuals, businesses and government posed by sudden shifts in fossil fuel prices.

6.) Energy efficiency improvements and renewable energy both have hedging value as insurance against sudden spikes in fossil fuel costs.”

 Doyle also critiqued the report, saying “Anybody who doesn’t think this creates jobs is simply not looking around.” Doyle’s Office of Energy Independence released a study saying the legislation would create 15,000 jobs by 2025.

This is far from the first time OWN has noted WPRI’s propensity for twisting the truth to suit the interests of their monied special interest and corporate friends.

And yet the University of Wisconsin-Madison poli sci department doesn’t believe their joint polling effort with WPRI doesn’t help advance a conservative legislative agenda?

You can visit Wisconsin Environment’s report in the report section at www.WisconsinEnvironment.org.

As is the tradition, a tour through the best and worst of the year.

The Best

The year started off on the high note that was watching the Worst President Ever leaving the White House for the last time, which brought with it another yearly best: the endless video compiliations of the worst Bush moments. YouTube never had it so good. 

Here in Wisconsin, decisive and effective action from Madison earlier this year is leading Wisconsin out of the worst of the Bush recession. Unemployment here has been dropping since June and is lower than the national rate, and despite the worst rhetoric from Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce bashing Wisconsin’s economy, business are opening and relocating here and bringing jobs to the state. 

For sheer entertainment value, President of Teabag-istan Sarah Palin’s descent into madness during 2009 is second to none. Remember when she quit being governor on July 4th weekend? What a patriot! Remember how she doesn’t even ride in that stupid bus on her stupid book tour? Or how she still demands to be called governor and requests English-only reporters? 

Combining two of her most juvenile and irritating hobbies, namely lying and facebooking, she launched the Lie of the Year: Death Panels. And at her no cameras, no cell phones, no media, no nothing event in Milwaukee for Wisconsin Right to Life on November 6, she floated another whopper, suggesting that President Obama and “teh libruls” conspired to move “In God We Trust” from the new dollar coin when in reality it was the previously mentioned Worst President Ever.