One Wisconsin Now Statements on Latest Walker Failure: 12,500 Private Sector Jobs Gone

Unemployment Rate Rises to Near Year-Long High, Despite Millions of Dollars in Corporate Tax Breaks, Dismantling of Workers' Rights, Education

MADISON, Wis. — One Wisconsin Now Executive Director Scot Ross released the following statements regarding the latest failure from Gov. Scott Walker and the Republican-controlled legislature: 12,500 private sector jobs lost in July and the unemployment rate rising to its highest level in almost a year at 7.8 percent. The news comes after Walker signed into law $2.3 billion in new tax breaks for corporations and the wealthy, while gutting public and higher education and health care, as well as stripping 175,000 workers of their rights.

“Gov. Scott Walker and the Republicans controlling the legislature promised us new jobs and they have delivered nothing but new corporate tax breaks and attacks on Wisconsin’s way of life. This latest startling news, that 12,500 private sector jobs were lost in July, is the latest sign that Walker’s scheme of enriching corporate donors with our education and health care tax dollars is a failure. The next time Gov. Walker goes to Twitter to crow, he might offer a little honesty with something like: ‘12.5K jobs bye-bye: I’m a failure 4 WI. #walkerfailure’ ”

Gov. Walker signed over $100 million in new tax breaks for corporations and the wealthy in January in addition to the massive breaks he signed in the state budget. The state’s unemployment rate had been holding steady or falling for much of the two years preceding his taking office.

Walker’s July tweets on both his campaign and “government” Twitter accounts are available here: http://twitter.com/#!/GovWalker/status/95638289314353152

and here: http://twitter.com/#!/ScottKWalker/status/94106067943952384

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