Walker Won’t Make Jobs Pledge For Second Term

Gov. Scott Walker said he won’t make another job creation promise for his second term, though he said he does not regret telling voters he’d help create 250,000 private-sector jobs in his first term.

Walker has said that in coming days he’ll introduce his economic development agenda for his second term. It was during a similar unveiling more than four years ago that he made his famous 250,000 jobs pledge.

Walker said his new agenda would focus on his plan and not on a jobs goal. He also said he does not regret making the pledge, though it’s highly unlikely that the number of private-sector jobs added to Wisconsin’s economy by the end of his term will be anywhere close to 250,000.

“I think from my standpoint, it would be like taking over a football team that was 0-16 and saying your hope was that you’d win 4 games,” he said. “That would be a lofty goal. We set a big goal. You take over a team and say we’re going to turn around, we’re going to get them in the playoffs, we’re going to win the Super Bowl eventually. I think people in this state want us to aim high. We aimed to have a Super Bowl performance economy.”

From the beginning of Walker’s term through July of this year, Wisconsin’s private sector had created about 103,000 jobs, leaving the state about 147,000 jobs short with less than six months to go in Walker’s first term.

Democrat Mary Burke unveiled her economic development plan earlier this year, and while she did not pledge a certain number of jobs, she did say she wanted to help make Wisconsin a “top 10” economy.