http://newiprogressive.com/images/stories/S5/oscar-mayer-plant-mdsn-s5.jpgThe entire Oscar Mayer ordeal has shown the incredible incompetence of the Walker administration and it's failed economic development agency.

MADISON - Last June, officials at Governor Walker’s signature job creation agency, the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation (WEDC), learned that Oscar Mayer was being wooed by other states. Rather than immediately following up with Kraft officials, WEDC consulted with Wisconsin Manufactures and Commerce (WMC) to plan the best course of action.

Apparently the answer was to do nothing. By Novemeber, Kraft Heinz announced Madison’s Oscar Mayer plant, a fixture on the East Side for nearly 100 years, would close and its headquarters moved to Chicago, putting 1,000 employees out of work. This is what happens when big campaign donors are allowed to run state agencies.

“I don’t know what’s more absurd, that WMC is running WEDC or that they knowingly abandoned Oscar Mayer’s thousands of families. WMC continues to do a disservice to Wisconsin", says Sen. Mark Miller (D - Monona). "They cannot claim to be a voice and advocate on the behalf of all Wisconsin businesses while facilitating a major business to leave by advising no contact by WEDC."

Is this how the WEDC is supposed to work? How long do Wisconsin taxpayers suffer while the Governor's WEDC hemorrhages loans with zero oversight? How many more employers and jobs does Wisconsin need to lose?

"WEDC is a failed experiment, plain and simple", says Miller. “This entire ordeal has shown incredible incompetence by the Walker administration. Wisconsin companies and workers deserve better. Governor Walker says that Wisconsin is open for business. He keeps using that phrase. Governor, I do not think it means what you think it means.”