With the possible exception of Mark Sanford, it's difficult to imagine a governor in the United States who has become more ineffectual than Jim Doyle.
I'm not talking about "ineffectual" as it applies to getting his cronies in the State legislature to give him what he wants in terms of the monsterous budget that he's signing today. I'm talking about ineffecutal when it comes to things that matter to everyday people - like saving their jobs!
The statewide unemployment rate is 8.7 percent. The unemployment rate is 9 percent in the Milwaukee area, 9.2 percent in Wausau, 9.5 percent in Sheboygan and a staggering 12.9 percent in Janesville. Even in Madison, an area where employment is propped up by government jobs that almost never go away, the unemployment rate is 6.2 percent.
To put this in perspective, the Milwaukee area alone lost nearly 45,000 jobs in the last year!
The biggest problem though is that Doyle seems completely and totally unable to stop the job losses.
First, there was the decision by Thomas Industries to move 400 good paying jobs from Sheboygan for Louisianna. In this case, it appeared that Doyle couldn't even be bothered to intervene personally - choosing instead to watch high speed trains in Spain and high end golf at the Masters.
Second, there was the decision by General Motors to bail on Janesville once and for all. In contrast to the Thomas Industries debacle, Doyle did make an effort to save 1500 jobs in Janesville. Unfortunately for Janesville, it seems that Doyle was used mostly as a bargaining chip by GM to extract more concessions from Michigan.
Now comes the battle for Fond du Lac's largest employer, Mercury Marine.
Mercury, founded in 1939, employs about 1900 unionized workers. Mercury also has a non-union facility in Stillwater, Oklahoma which currently employs 400 people. Rumor has it that Mercury is looking to consolidate its operations in either Stillwater or Fond du Lac. The fear is, of course, that Mercury will pull a Thomas Industries and move from its larger facility in Wisconsin to a smaller facility elsewhere - taking the jobs with them. If this happens, the unemployment rate in Fond du Lac will make Janesville look like a boom town.
The truth is that Doyle has an uphill battle in trying to save private sector jobs. Thanks in large measure to various proposals that he has championed, the business climate in this State is horrible. Frankly, it's tough for Wisconsin to compete against other States that are trying to cherry pick Wisconsin's few remaining private sector job providers. Talk about reaping what you've sowed.
If we were bring new industries into Wisconsin, the job exodus by existing businesses wouldn't be as troubling. "New jobs" and "Wisconsin" are however two terms which rarely surface within the same sentence.
Last week, the Doyle-ie's were vigorously denying rumors that Doyle was going to sign the State budget and then parachute out of town. Too bad. It would be nice if he's just turn the State over to Scott Walker now instead of waiting until January 2011. At least then, we might have a chance to save at least a few private sector jobs.
0 COMMENTS
ADD A COMMENT