Natalie Gonnella
He's only been in office for three months, but most of America is already fairly familiar with Governor Scott Walker.
With a budget repair bill that caused a furor of controversy, including a lengthy standoff with Democrats and pro-labor protesters, Walker's first 100 days in office have been anything but dull.
Reflecting on the state's eventful start to 2011, the freshman Governor weighed in on his first months in office during an interview this morning with Milwaukee's Newsradio 620 WTMJ.
Here's a quick look at what he had to say about his experience as governor thus far:
On how he feels about his first 100 days in office:
It feels good. I think we've signed more bills into law than any governor in the last 30 years. Almost every one of them has been job related, and we said early on that Wisconsin was open for business. I think we've shown it in the first 100 days that we're serious about it. We need to continue to do that. That's the one thing that's going to bring the state of Wisconsin together is a better economy.
On a grade for his first months in office:
I think for all the things we said we'd do right now, an A. We talked about a special session on jobs. We acted on that early in the first 30 to 40 days. We talked about balancing the budget without raising taxes and doing things for the economy. We're on pace. There's a lot of work to be done yet. There's much more work to get the state working again, to reach our goals of 250,000 jobs, but in the end, we're on the pace we set. It is an aggressive pace, but I think any time you face a crisis, and in this case, both an economic and fiscal crisis, you've gotta move quickly, and that's what we've done.
On his message to Wisconsin residents:
I think for us, it's clear. We want to get Wisconsin working again. People are ready to get back to work. They're ready to have government that works for them. We're going to continue to push reforms to get both the economy going, as well as the state government working better for the people of the state.
On his top goals for the next 100 days:
For us, it's going to be certainly jobs, helping small businesses create more jobs in this state. That continues to be the number one priority and nearly all of our focus, but along with that, education reform, finding more affordable health care options for small businesses. It's putting in energy policies to help grow the state's economy. All those things are the things we're going to be pushing out there, and probably the big thing is making government run better. Part of our budget reforms were allowing schools, for example, to put the best and the brightest in the classroom, put staffing in place based on performance and merit, and not based on seniority. Those are the things we're pushing in place to make Wisconsin work better. I think we're going to have great success.
The full text of the Governor's recent radio interview is available here.
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