The Isthmus has an interesting article on Scott Walker this week.  While it’s obvious the overall tone is intended to paint the candidate for governor in a negative light, it seems to me that it actually highlights a lot of the good work he has done in Milwaukee County and that he has a strong vision for the state.  I think most of the perceived negatives come from the author’s lack of understanding rather than being true negatives.

For example, the opening salvo is to paint Walker as ‘anti-government’.  As this is explained, this perception comes from the fact that Walker stated he wants to ‘put our faith in the people and employers who make this country great’.  This is the crux of the problem (as the author sees it) and I can only assume the author would rather a candidate who asks us to put all our faith in the government.  What makes that position odd though is that the author then goes on to cite the extremely poor position Doyle and the current, Democrat-led, government has put our state in.  Given that fact, anyone who believes the people and, yes, employers (the people who create jobs for the aforementioned people) of the state of the Wisconsin should come first looks pretty darn good to me!  Score one for Walker.

It’s not that Walker hates government; it’s just that he states his belief that the government should be serving a different role than it has been.  That’s not ‘anti-government’, that’s just plain smart.  Clearly where the current leadership has been leading isn’t working and Walker simply is providing a strong vision for an alternative approach.

Another example given is how Walker apparently has done such a poor job with Milwaukee County parks that they’re ranked among the best in the nation (that's not a typo, yes the parks are ranked among the best). And this happened while he was reducing spending!  Smaller budget with as good or better results?  Sounds like a good deal to me.  Even if this is a testament to the park director’s leadership, clearly she found a way to be the best in the nation without a bottomless budget.  That sounds like a leader raising the bar to me. 

And so it goes.  There seems to be sort of a reluctant appreciation for Walker but an intense desire to find something that will ‘stick’ to him.  While I won’t comment on everything, I couldn’t let this next comment pass without commenting myself.  Shifting to more general policy later in the article the author writes:

“The obvious problem with Walker's logic is that no amount of tax cuts will encourage employers to hire workers to make products when already-produced inventory is sitting on shelves in stores and warehouses. The problem is lack of spending power among ordinary Americans. And the solution, some economists say, requires government intervention to put people back to work, restore spending power and get the economy rolling again.”

What the author conveniently ‘forgets’ is that tax cuts help everyone, not just employers, and that makes a huge difference.  Tax cuts would increase the spending power of ordinary Wisconsinites.  Tax cuts leave more money with the people that earned the money in the first place.  Those same people would now have money to spend on that inventory sitting on the shelves.  Government spending is just someone sitting in Madison (or Washington) taking our money, adding a little government-processing overhead (when does the middle-man not a take a little something for the 'effort'?), and then sending it back to where they want to spend it – like their politically connected projects and not necessarily where it’s most needed. 

You have to look no further than the failure of the current ‘stimulus’ to see how well government intervention works.  Walker is on the right track to suggest a different solution is in order.