Walker Blasts Hillary’s ‘Top Down, Washington Knows Best’ Approach to Government

Saying it should be “left in the past,” Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker went after what he called Hillary Clinton’s “Washington-knows-best, top-down approach that says we’ll tell you what to do, when to do and how to do it.”

As reported by The Washington Times, Walker made his remarks on Tuesday at Florida Gov. Rick Scott’s Economic Growth Forum in Orlando. “I think that is tired, I think that [has] failed. I think that’s something that should be left in the past. I think the contrast to that, to young voters, as an example, is to say we believe an economy should be built from the ground up — it’s new and fresh… organic and dynamic.”

Walker’s other chief talking point was his ability to reach out to young voters while staying true to Republican principles:

“I think we need to go to places Republicans don’t typically go, and we need to talk in ways that we don’t typically talk about,” Mr. Walker said at an economic summit in response to a question on how the GOP can get more people in the party’s tent. “We need to be true to our principles, true to our concepts.”

Mr. Walker, who is not yet an official 2016 presidential candidate but has been running at or near the top in early public polls on the GOP field, touted exit polling from his re-election campaign last year that showed him narrowly winning among 18- to 24-year-olds.

“That’s largely unheard of for a Republican,” he said at Florida Gov. Rick Scott’s Economic Growth Forum in Orlando. “We actually went to college campuses, we organized, and we went out to where young professionals were. We laid out the difference, which I think is not unlike the difference we might very likely see in this presidential election.”

Augmenting his attack on Democrat frontrunner Hillary Clinton’s big government, top down approach to government, Walker also penned a column for the New Hampshire Union Leader that highlighted the success of his state-based approach in Wisconsin.

Another View — Scott Walker: How we turned things around in Wisconsin

Five years ago, Wisconsin ranked 41st in the country for places to do business, according to Chief Executive Magazine. Since then, the state has moved up to 12th best in America.

Wisconsin has come a long way in a very short time.

A dismal economy wasn’t the only problem. As we came into office, the state faced a $3.6 billion deficit, the rainy day fund was nearly drained and special interests dictated things at the state and local levels.

Thankfully, we changed all of that, and today Wisconsin is a much better place. We turned that deficit into a surplus, and our next state budget starts with a $499 million structural surplus. Wisconsin has the only pension system fully funded, and the rainy day fund is 165 times bigger than when I first took office.