How Will Mary Burke Create Jobs in Wisconsin?

On January 18, I published an article on this blog that explained why I had decided to support Mary Burke for governor of Wisconsin. In that article, I gave several reasons for supporting her, and one of them was that she gave a very high priority to creating jobs but at the same time, she understood that she didn’t need to give the state away to her campaign donors to accomplish that. I wrote,

[Mary Burke] said that her highest priority would be to promote the creation of jobs. The current administration has a sorry record in this area, and she said that the people of Wisconsin deserve better. Her credentials lead me to believe that she may really know what to do to create jobs in our state.  She has both private and public experience. She helped to grow Trek Bicycle into a worldwide brand with thousands of employees, and as Commerce Secretary, she helped to create and to preserve many jobs in Wisconsin. So, she knows that we can have good jobs without giving the state away to a few companies that make large campaign contributions.

In effect, I said that we could trust Mary because of her experience and her attitudes.  Now, I would like to hear more. If Mary really knows how to create jobs – and I believe that she does – she should be able to tell us more about her plans to do so. This should not be a problem for her. After all, she has made job creation a central plank in her platform, and she has indeed had a lot of experience creating jobs.

I can think of some things she might do:

·    She could decide to invest some of the state’s money into repairing our roads and bridges.

·    She could provide support for commercial research and development to create new products made in Wisconsin or that are made from material that are produced in Wisconsin.  (That wouldn’t create many jobs in the short run, but it would help in the long run.)

·    She could invest in trade missions to spread the word about Wisconsin’s products in other countries.

·    She could negotiate actively with Wisconsin’s companies to do more of their work in Wisconsin.

·    She could develop programs to build on existing strengths. For example, the Gulfstream production facility at Outagamie County Airport might be used as a basis for attracting related businesses.

I’m sure that there are other things that I don’t know about but that Mary, with her broad experience, can think of. So, Mary, what do you have in mind?