Apparently, "less government" means "less powers, but more pay for friends." Also: Lying is cool. (Publicus Proventus.)

Wisconsin Emperor-Elect Scott Walker is a member of the Republican party, which in theory means smaller government but in reality means "putting businessmen on the state payroll while not requiring they do anything." Maybe that's how he plans to create 250,000 jobs -- by hiring buddies to work for The Official State Cheerleader (the role he ascribes to the Governor's office.)

Walker plans to ask the legislature to transfer Wisconsin's Department of Commerce's power mostly to him and a businessman-to-be-named-later. From WTDY.com:

Scott Walker wants the department to become a public-private partnership that will focus on jobs and deal less with regulation. Walker talked about his plans this morning, hoping to call the new agency the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation. It will focus solely on job creation programs and reassign regulatory duties to other agencies. It will have a CEO and twelve board members that will be appointed by the governor. Walker says this new idea will help him keep his campaign promise of adding a quarter of a million jobs to the state during his first term.

A CEO?! That sounds like a business and everything. Especially the part about cronyism and hiring buddies: Walker would appoint businessmen to the Board.

Unlike businesses -- or government agencies -- though, the new "corporation" wouldn't have any actual powers: the regulatory powers that Commerce has now would be shifted to other agencies, while the new "corporation" (which would hire staff, increasing the size of government) appears to be mostly advisory:

The governor would be chairman of the board. Walker said the board could hire staff, makes proposals to the Legislature, coordinate with other economic development groups across the state and administer programs on its own.

(Source.) As part of this dubious "jobs creation" plan, Walker is going to try to fire the 400 people currently employed by Commerce and make them re-apply for jobs under the "corporation."

But, hey, it sounds business-y, right? So it must be good. Just like lying about... that is, revising... his small business tax cuts also must be good, because Walker says so.

Walker's proposed small business tax cut plan originally proposed to cut taxes by 1% on businesses who employ 50 or fewer people. That plan was criticized back in September when WISC-TV noted that it would likely save businesses only a few hundred (or up to $2000) dollars.

Turns out, though, that Walker was only kidding: His plan, really, is to help rich business owners, as he revealed with his newly-revamped plan to cut taxes on the wealthiest small business owners (does cutting taxes on the wealthiest people sound familiar to you? Nice work, voters). Walker says now he's going to base the tax cuts on how much the companies make. That proposal was conspicuously absent from his campaign website.

But, hey, if small business owners who aren't wealthy always want to earn more, they could apply for jobs at Cheerleader Walker's Jobs Corporation. They won't even have to do anything.