Looking Back on Scott Walker's Childish Campaign to Convince Illinois Businesses to come to Wisconsin

Shortly after Scott Walker took office last January he embarked on an aggressive campaign, not against state employee unions, but against an entire state itself: the state of Illinois. Now, hating on the Land of Lincoln is not rare thing among Wisconsinites, but Walker had a particularly public venue to air his grievences and he took full advantage of them.

Walker had been in office just over a week when Walker started to stick his foot in his mouth:

Madison, Wis. - Gov. Scott Walker tried to take full advantage of Illinois lawmakers passing dramatic tax increases Wednesday, saying Wisconsin would welcome any businesses from its neighboring state that care to relocate.

Absent from Walker's sales pitch was the fact that Wisconsin's top income tax rates remain higher than Illinois even under the increase.

Even so, the Republican Walker was reveling in drawing a comparison between Illinois, which has a Democratic governor, and his agenda to cut taxes.

"Years ago Wisconsin had a tourism advertising campaign targeted to Illinois with the motto, 'Escape to Wisconsin,"' Walker said in a statement. "Today we renew that call to Illinois businesses, 'Escape to Wisconsin.' You are welcome here."

Walker referenced Illinois' problem in a speech to business leaders on Tuesday, issued a statement hours after the tax increase vote on Wednesday and then called a news conference to talk about it as well.

Wisconsin lawmakers were picking up on it as well. Rep. Robin Vos, R-Caledonia, said he welcomed any chance to "kind of stick it to them" in Illinois. He said lawmakers there raising taxes played right into Walker's hands.

It was an early show of the tact and skill with which Walker and his comrades would hand seemingly all of their business. It also didn't take long for Walker's strategy of arrogance to backfire spectacularly. But that didn't stop Walker from continuing his campaign on idiocy against Illinois one more time in May.

Almost a year later, the employment figures for the two states couldn't be more different. From yesterday's MJS:

Wisconsin posted the nation's biggest payroll losses, with employment dropping by 9,700 jobs in October compared with September, according to a U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics report released Tuesday.

The bureau said Wisconsin was the only state with a statistically significant decline in employment, dropping from 2,757,200 jobs in September to 2,747,500 jobs in October. However, the state unemployment rate, which doesn't include jobless people no longer actively searching for new work, dropped to 7.7% from 7.8%.

Wisconsin saw a job increase in the leisure and hospitality sector, according to the bureau's seasonally
adjusted data.

But there were declines in several other sectors: construction; manufacturing; trade, transportation and utilities; financial activities; professional and business services; education and health services, and government.

New York had the second-largest payroll loss, at 8,300 jobs. That might reflect cutbacks in the financial services industry, which is "in a very tough cost-conscious mode right now," said Steve Cochrane, director of regional economics at Moody's Analytics Inc.

Illinois led the nation with a 30,000 gain in jobs...

It's worth looking again at the two paragraphs in the middle of that story:

Wisconsin saw a job increase in the leisure and hospitality sector, according to the bureau's seasonally adjusted data.

But there were declines in several other sectors: construction; manufacturing; trade, transportation and utilities; financial activities; professional and business services; education and health services, and government.

It's worth pointing out that Walker's jihad against light rail, wind power, public education and all forms of government account directly for the loses in those sectors and it's more than likely that the political chaos that Wisconsin has become famous for during his term has made the state a less than desirable place for other businesses to relocate.