Capper Captures Walker's Words

Capper at Cognitive Dissidence posted this screen cap, which was taken from Scott Walker's 2002 campaign website. The first of his three big promises was that he would "reduce the salary for the County Executive position by $60,000". It was $128,820 (MJS, 4/5/02) when he took office and now it is $129,611. Not only is that not a decrease of $60,000, but it is actually an overall increase.

Capper does a great job of pointing out that even though Walker did send $60,000 back to the county from 2002-2008, he still stood to gain a large bundle if his pension benefits were based on the official salary ($128,820-$129,611). So did Mr. "pension reformer" reform his own pension or did he try to grab as much cash as possible (behind the scenes) while he was posing for holy pictures?

Speaking of inappropriately posing for holy pictures, Walker made his very first ad about his 2002 campaign promise to give back $60,000 of his pay each year. Quite an odd thing to focus on when in 2008 (during the worst part of the Great Bush Recession) he arbitrarily decided to stop keeping that promise and gave himself a $50,000 raise. All the while, he was cutting important programs and sending other county workers to the unemployment line.

Walker ran this ad first because he is worried about his slippery words and broken promises on this issue. He should be worried and he clearly is trying to get out in front of it. Most people don't care how big you smile in a political ad if you are, at the very same moment, being captured by your own phony words.

UPDATE: Walker's first ad has now received some national attention, but I'm not sure it was in a good way.