Look, we all know that politicians often have questionable motives.
At local, state and federal levels elected officials often make decisions based on what they think will or won’t get them re-elected rather than what would actually be good for their constituents.
While there are certainly dozens of examples of such politicians in Wisconsin alone, Gov. Scott Walker might be the most obsessed with making decisions purely for his own political gain.
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For those of us from Milwaukee County, we still remember the years of County Exec. Scott Walker, who used his position solely to posture himself to run for governor. He did nothing of value for the county, and I would argue Milwaukee is still trying to dig itself out of the hole he dug.
After Walker won the governorship in 2010, it became clear to many of us that though his title had changed, Walker was still as self-serving as ever.
You can say what you want about the 2011 Walker-engineered passage of Act 10, but the simple fact of the matter is Walker didn’t engineer it to benefit the state — he did it to make himself a household name in the conservative world.
In the months and years after he survived the recall attempt against him, Walker went on tour boasting about how incredible Wisconsin’s new conservative government was.
Unfortunately, those of us he left behind on his tour spent every day being reminded of our state’s crumbling infrastructure, dropping test scores, sinking university rankings and stagnant economy while he told the rest of the country how great everything is here.
When he finally did run for president, it became apparent pretty quickly that Walker just wasn’t ready for prime time.
His claim that taking on protesters in Madison was somehow equivalent to taking on ISIS was almost universally scoffed at, and even President Donald Trump bashed him for the current predicaments Wisconsin faces (even a blind squirrel finds a nut sometimes).
Fast forward to 2017.
Walker is in the awkward position of becoming politically irrelevant. His plans to make Wisconsin better just haven’t come to fruition. The University of Wisconsin System continues to hurt badly in the aftermath of his cuts, and questions about the many scandals surrounding him leave many with concerns.
So, what does Walker do?
This week he decides it’s time to increase funding for schools after wanting to take it away.
That’s lovely.
But let’s not pretend for one second he’s doing this to make Wisconsin better. He’s doing this because Wisconsin is struggling, people are noticing and he needs to save his own ass when he runs for re-election in 2018.
That’s how Walker does things. It’s never about Wisconsin, it’s always about him. But while he hides away in the Capitol, it will be Wisconsinites paying the price.
Woman gives Governor’s Mansion middle finger, is crowned hero of Google Earth
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