Friday, December 16, 2011

Pro-Walker "jobs" ad omits important details

"Small business" billionaire distorts effects of Gov. Walker's "reforms"

The pro-Walker ads keep on coming, and as usual they continue to lack context that leaves the viewer unaware of just how misleading they really are.

"Chris," a "business owner", describes the "positive" things Walker has done for Wisconsin:
Gov. Walker is a friend of small business. He recognizes that 70 percent of the jobs created in this country and this state are by small businesses. He wants all the people in this state to be successful. It's comforting. And it’s been rare. So, it’s a refreshing change.
A lot of what the man in this ad says, like previous ads supportive of Walker, neglect to include relevant information about the subject at hand.

"Chris" is actually Chris Rebholz, CEO of Christopher Morgan Fulfillment Services. You've likely seen his products -- if you've watched a few infomercials. While they do hire some Wisconsin citizens, Rebholz's company imports most of its products through the use of Chinese labor.

From Uppity Wisconsin:
Of course, there is nothing wrong with infomercials, but the reality is that Wisconsin is hemoraging manufacturing jobs almost exclusively to China. And when customers buy from a TV ad or online, it also requires fewer jobs to get that product to the customer because there is no store and the jobs that go with a store.

In other words, if you were going to set up a business model with the fewest American jobs possible, it would be Chris Rebholz's business model. That's the guy... that Scott Walker chose to promote his job creation efforts.
But it isn't just that Scott Walker chose a man who uses Chinese workers to make his products. He's also a billionaire who thrived in Wisconsin's economic climate...long before Walker was governor.

From One Wisconsin Now:
The "business owner" featured in the latest Scott Walker television ad saw his business grow 1,300 percent during the administration of Gov. Jim Doyle, according to a self-professed claim in the Business Times from 2008.
It was under a Democratic governor, then, that Rebholz's company really thrived -- not under the "reforms" that Gov. Walker put into place.

The underlying fact that puts to rest anything that this ad tries to claim is that there hasn't been a single month of job growth since Walker's budget passed earlier this year. Sure, Wisconsin saw six months of growth during the first half of the year -- but that was under the last months of Gov. Jim Doyle's previous budget. Ever since Walker's budget was put into play, there's been nothing but net losses.



Walker's ads continue to distort the truth, to hide the things he doesn't want the people of Wisconsin to know about. Unfortunately for our governor, the numbers don't lie.

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