Scott Walker's New Scandal

When Scott Walker was elected he promised to attract tons of new jobs to Wisconsin. That didn't happen, for a lot of reasons. But one of the big ones is that Walker eliminated the Commerce Department and replaced it with the Wisconsin Economic Development Agency, a "public-private partnership" which he apparently used to funnel state money into the wallets of campaign contributors and cronies:

Agency projects have also come under scrutiny for political ties, with major Walker donors receiving handsome payouts.

Cheese manufacturers controlled by the Gentine family, which has cumulatively given $104,000 to Walker's campaigns, have received five separate deals totaling more than $1.5 million in loans and more than $9 million in financing. A $2 million tax credit went to a company ultimately owned by Diane Hendricks, a billionaire construction magnate who contributed $500,000 to Scott Walker's campaign during the 2012 recall, when there were effectively no donor limits. And companies represented on the board of Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce, a business trade group that spent undisclosed sums against Walker's recall, are regular awardees.

Walker was in such a hurry to shovel state money into dump trucks that didn't bother to vet the companies he put on the government dole:

The Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation awarded $1.2 million in grants and loans in 2011 and 2012 to Green Box NA Green Bay LLC, a company that said it could produce recycled products, electricity and even diesel from fast-food waste.

"Gov. Walker and I are firmly committed to doing everything possible to expedite the processing and awarding of this incentive award," then-agency Chief Executive Paul Jadin wrote in a September 2011 letter to Green Box.

There were warning signs. Green Box told the state that the company and its founder, Ron Van Den Heuvel, had no recent legal troubles. But court records showed that Van Den Heuvel had been sued 27 times in the prior five years by banks, business partners, state tax officials and even a jeweler. Green Box said it held seven patents, but the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office lists no patents granted or assigned to Van Den Heuvel or the company.

Four years later, the 116 jobs the company promised to create don't exist, according to a recent legal deposition of Van Den Heuvel, though in another setting the company has said it created all 116 jobs. Green Box is in court-ordered receivership, and its attorney told a court that sheriff's deputies had seized five truckloads of documents from its offices, according to the Green Bay Press-Gazette on Monday.

Nonpartisan state audits have determined that the agency doled out tax breaks, loans and grants in ways that ran contrary to its own rules and state law. Expected jobs never materialized, with some award recipients receiving payouts even as they outsourced Wisconsin jobs overseas. Awards appear to have gone to Walker's political supporters and allies-- at least in one case, after a high-ranking Walker appointee interceded on an applicant's behalf. 

WEDC wasn't some obscure government agency that Walker inherited. He created it, he was its champion and chairman until July 12 of this year. He appointed six of the 15 board members, all but two of whom are Republicans. Walker's adviser, Eileen Schoenfeldt, also has complete access to every detail of the agency's grants and loans.

WEDC is Walker's baby, the crux of his unfulfilled promise to create jobs. He ignored all the warning signs of catastrophe in his pet project. Instead he spent all his time busting unions, kowtowing to mining interests and the Koch brothers, and running for president.

Republicans carp about the government loan program Solyndra used (which was started under George Bush, not Obama). Solyndra failed because Chinese companies dumped solar panels on the world market. Walker's WEDC failed because of graft and fraud.

Walker's very own creation is the epitome of crony capitalism and corporate welfare. And it's all on Walker: he was either party to the fraud at WEDC, or he was totally oblivious to it. Either way, he's clearly not competent to be governor of Wisconsin, and especially not president of the United States.