When he says he believes in government transparency, it's not just a campaign slogan, Walker said.
"I don't just say that, I've lived it," he said. "(In Milwaukee County), we have put all government purchases online at no additional cost. Every purchase, everything we enter into our accounting software, automatically in real time goes on to a website that tells the public every purchase by department. Not only a journalist but a citizen journalist or anybody else can track it down."
Well, it ain't 2010 anymore, and it looks like Governor Walker's Administration thinks they have found a way to stop "citizen journalists or anybody else" writing damaging stories about WEDC corruption and bilking taxpayers on out-of-state campaign trips. Hide the information from the public.
Citing security concerns, Gov. Scott Walker’s office is no longer releasing information about where he stays on out-of-state trips in regularly released calendars of his past activities.That's right, taxpayers of Wisconsin. Scott Walker's administration says you have no right to ask how he and his staff are using your taxpayer dollars. This is unbelievably arrogant, and displays what a low opinion Walker and company have of the average Wisconsinite.
Also on the same calendars, Walker’s office is no longer disclosing the names and phone numbers of companies that the Wisconsin Economic Development Corp. is working with on economic incentive packages.
The decision to withhold those two types of information was disclosed Friday with the release of Walker’s daily calendars from June....
The statement noted the governor has had threats to his safety and stalking incidents in the past, and information about where he has stayed “could be used to establish patterns and predict the governor’s overnight location on future trips.”
Props to the Wisconsin State Journal for exposing how these guys roll, and I know this will shock you, but there isn't a word about this in the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, who receives advertising dollars from WEDC. Just like how the J-S has failed to mention that companies which received WEDC tax credits outsourced Wisconsin jobs, and that Walker received $68,500 in PAC donations from companies who outsourced jobs.
Actions speak louder than words, and this administration's actions scream "Corrupt group who knows they're sinking in the polls, and hope they can win on deception and hiding from the public."
EDIT: And it's not just in these departments where the Walker folks aren't being transparent. The Department of Revenue has regularly released tax collections on the fourth Friday of the month, but they didn't release June's yesterday (at least anywhere that I've seen). And they still haven't put the release of May's collections onto their website, let alone June's. Combine that with the hiring of a new Communications Director with major ties to WisGOP Senators, and it makes you wonder if something's up.
While we're at it, we can call b.s. on transparency during his tenure as county exec. From secondary wireless routers to stripping everything from his offices including the computers and shredding documents. He's not been transparent for a single moment of his life.
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