Last Wednesday, Gov. Scott Walker gave his State of the State address. In doing so, he pulled a Fox News.

Walker made a lot of claims throughout his speech, so let’s start at the beginning. He noted that since the last time he addressed Wisconsin a year ago, the unemployment rate has fallen. He failed to mention the recent Department of Workforce Development survey in December that showed we lost private sector jobs for six straight months.

Yes, there has been some improvement. But whether Walker’s administration can implicitly claim responsibility is highly debatable. We’re in a period of economic recovery, so there is a certain level of jobs that will appear regardless of government action.

Furthermore, Brian Jacobsen, a senior portfolio strategist at Wells Fargo Advantage Funds and associate professor at Wisconsin Lutheran College, noted in the Journal Sentinel that Wisconsin’s “unemployment rate … has been improving for bad reasons.”

For example, economists note that some improvement in the employment rate is attributable to the more than 1,000 Wisconsinites who stopped looking for work in December. They didn’t find jobs; they just gave up. This did, however, make the unemployment rate decrease. Thus, Walker’s implied claim of his administration being responsible for a falling unemployment rate is notably questionable. 

Walker went on to comment on how his administration has balanced the state’s budget “without raising taxes, without massive layoffs and without using budget tricks.” It’s a good thing the upper class didn’t have to bear as much burden as the middle and lower classes. I remember a wealthy friend remarking in 2009 that they didn’t feel the recession at all, since they weren’t facing any financial hardships. It’s nice knowing the wealthy sleep just as comfortably now thanks having the same tax rates prior to the recession.

Walker’s administration may not have directly raised taxes, but by radically reforming and stripping unions down, it placed a tax on the middle and lower classes. The working class has been taxed. That which we call a tax by any other name will create just as heavy of a burden.

The governor went on to claim that people create jobs, not the government. I’m so glad our federal government understood that when they created all the jobs with New Deal legislation that lifted our country out of the Great Depression.

Our state’s governor also claimed that Wisconsin passed pro-jobs legislation with “lawmakers in both parties.” But I seem to remember he refused to compromise a single inch on union reform. 

Walker claimed that “94 percent of our job creators believe Wisconsin is headed in the right direction.” But John Heywood, an economist at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, remarked in the Journal Sentinel that, based on the Department of Workforce Development data, Wisconsin is experiencing a deteriorating labor market. Jeff Gerkin, a general manager in the Midwest for Right Management, also noted in the Journal Sentinel that businesses remain skittish to add workers. These raise obvious doubts about Walker’s claim. 

Walker stressed making Wisconsin pro-business. Everything his administration has done related to business can be classified as supply-side economics. This ideology posits that by making life easier for businesses, those businesses will grow, and as a result the economy will as well. This is the “trickle-down” idea from Ronald Reagan’s era. 

This approach is inherently faulty. A basic tenet of economics is that people make decisions that optimize their own lives. So why would an employer give his employees a larger bonus when the company turns a larger profit? Economist and Princeton University professor Paul Krugman recently wrote on this idea of business deregulation that Walker has been touting. Republicans laud it as creating growth, but you must ask, for whom? Deregulation, “if you’re talking about the 1 percent,” causes wonderful things to happen. The other 99 percent of Wisconsin, however, won’t experience the growth the Walker administration pretends will happen.

Then there’s the education that Walker continually talked about improving. He cited personal examples where unions in the education setting caused problems. But those are exceptions. And yes, some reform would have been good for unions. But a broken window doesn’t justify razing the whole building to the ground.

Walker put forward a plan to figure out which schools are failing and need help. This has been done before. It was called the No Child Left Behind Act, and resulted in a race to the bottom. Schools will be encouraged to lower their internal standards to appear to be “succeeding.” 

I found it ironic that Walker spent so much of his speech talking about education, because his administration has helped make the UW System face the third-largest cuts in the country. The UW System makes up 7 percent of the state budget, but has taken 38 percent of the cuts.

Walker mentioned in most parts of Wisconsin he has found “a sense of respect.” It’s a good thing he gives that same respect to Wisconsinites’ exercise of free speech, like when he acknowledged during a prank call he considered planting troublemakers in the protesting crowds last fall.

And as for moving the state forward, the Walker administration has undone union protections that have been in this state since the early 1900s. Our state seems to be moving backward when viewed historically. 

So what does this all mean about the State of the State? It was like watching Fox News. Everything seems glorious because only one side is told. The future seems bright because you’re staring blindingly into the sun. I let my guard down, and Walker convinced me that everything he was saying was true. Then critical thinking set in.

Reginald Young ([email protected]) is a junior majoring in legal studies and Scandinavian studies.