According to Madison Wisconsin's Capital Times, when Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker took office, the current budget deficit didn't exist. He created it by enacting appropriations measures to pay for schemes that redirect state tax dollars to wealthy individuals and corporate interests. These are the same individuals and interest groups that have been the sources of campaign funding for the governor and his fellow Republicans.

As Madison’s Democratic state Rep. Brett Hulsey notes, the governor and legislators aligned with him have over the past month given away special-interest favors to every lobby group that came asking, creating zero jobs in the process “but increasing the deficit by more than $100 million.”

Actually, Hulsey’s being conservative in his estimate of how much money Walker and his allies have misappropriated for political purposes.

One Wisconsin Now, the progressive watchdog group that has provided the closest monitoring of Walker’s budgetary gamesmanship, explains:

“Since his inauguration in early January, Walker has approved $140 million in new special-interest spending that includes:

“• $25 million for an economic development fund for job creation that still has $73 million due to a lack of job creation. Walker is creating a $25 million hole which will not create or retain jobs.

“• $48 million for private health savings accounts, which primarily benefit the wealthy. A study from the federal Governmental Accountability Office showed the average adjusted gross income of HSA participants was $139,000 and nearly half of HSA participants reported withdrawing nothing from their HSA, evidence that it is serving as a tax shelter for wealthy participants.

“• $67 million for a tax shift plan, so ill-conceived that at best the benefit provided to ‘job creators’ would be less than a dollar a day per new job, and may be as little as 30 cents a day.”

State Rep. Mark Pocan, D-Madison, sums up this scheming accurately when he says: “In one fell swoop, Gov. Walker is trying to institute a sweeping radical and dangerous notion that will return Wisconsin to the days when land barons and railroad tycoons controlled the political elites in Madison.”

The bottom line is evident to anyone who cares to pay attention not to the spin but to the budget figures: Walker is manufacturing a fiscal “crisis” in order to achieve political goals.

How could he fail so miserably on the Tax Bill and Net Neutrality, while winning the day on DADT, SALT, and health care for 9/11 first responders? Simple, there was no discernible corporate opposition on the last three bills. The president's corporate masters will not object to bills in which they have no stake.

When they have a horse in the race, as they did in health care "reform," financial "reform," the tax bill and net neutrality, then the president serves up thin gruel intended only to create the appearance of progress, without seriously impeding the take over of Congress, the media, the internet, and the inverted totalitarianism Chris Hedges describes in his book, The Death of the Liberal Class. Two interviews with Hedges explain the agenda of Obama and those he serves:

Part 1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bYCvSntOI5s

Part 2 Q and A:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XfPDp0jCT_U