Here & Now

Mary Burke Responds to Walker Campaign Ad

Frederica Freyberg:

Last week we reported on an ad Governor Scott Walker’s campaign is airing. It’s about a multimillion dollar award Mary Burke’s commerce department made toward acreage for Abbott Labs to expand in Kenosha County. The ad says the money went for a vacant lot for a company that said it had no plans to create jobs in Wisconsin. PolitiFact Wisconsin rates the ad mostly true. This week we gave Mary Burke a chance to respond.

Mary Burke:

So this just goes to show how little Scott Walker knows about economic development. This was an incredible opportunity to have a Fortune 500 company grow their jobs in Wisconsin, good-paying, headquarters jobs. They are the largest employer in Kenosha County and were looking, on the long term, to expand. They had bought nearly 500 acres of land for that future expansion. We knew it would be long term. But those are just the types of investments we need to be making here in Wisconsin to make sure that we are able to grow those jobs long term.

Frederica Freyberg:

The Burke campaign says there is a written commitment for the jobs with the Kenosha Area Business Alliance on the hook if the job metric isn’t met in ten years, a time period the Burke campaigns points out has not yet elapsed.

Public school academic standards are also part of the conversation in the governor's race this week. On Thursday Governor Scott Walker called for the full repeal of the national performance standards for students known as Common Core. In a statement he said, I call on the members of the state legislature to pass a bill in early January to repeal Common Core and replace it with standards set by people in Wisconsin. For her part, Mary Burke has this to say about Common Core.

Mary Burke:

Anyone who looks in-depth at the Common Core sees that it makes a lot of sense. I think as a parent, if you look at it, there’s not one thing that you wouldn’t say, oh, yeah, I think that would be really good for my child to be learning. And what it provides is just a framework for each grade in each subject, those types of skills, critical thinking skills that should be developed. What it is not, it’s not teaching to the test. It’s not lowering our standards. It’s greatly increasing them. It’s not a ceiling. It’s a floor. But it would– But it’s absolutely needed for Wisconsin to compete for the jobs in the future.

Frederica Freyberg:

We sat down this week with Mary Burke and covered a variety of topics. Governor Walker has also been invited to record a similar interview.