Democrat disrespects faith-based jobs program

WASHINGTON—Former Sen. Russ Feingold, a Wisconsin Democrat trying to come back to Washington, this week dismissed a successful faith-based jobs program as insufficient because it doesn’t include more government solutions.

“It’s not enough to pick people up in a van and send them away a couple hours and have them come back exhausted at the end of the day,” Feingold told Wisconsin Public Radio. “That doesn't make a community.”

The Joseph Project, began last year to connect jobs with the jobless in eastern Wisconsin. Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., his staff, and Milwaukee’s Greater Praise Church of God in Christ have combined to train 157 inner city residents, and 85 have landed manufacturing jobs. Another 35 are trained and ready to take a position.

“The Joseph Project is doing a phenomenal job,” Jerome Smith, pastor of Greater Praise, told me in a phone interview. “Anyone who is saying it’s not building the community is somebody who is not in touch with the community.”

The Joseph Project runs on private donations and operates without government involvement, which allows Smith to infuse the program with spiritual principles and requirements such as prayer and church attendance.

Feingold, a three-term senator replaced by Johnson in 2011, called for the government to do more to alleviate inner-city problems.

“I disagree,” Smith said. “We need to keep the government out of it. I believe in order to fix a problem in the inner city, the answer has got to come from the inner city—not the government.”

The Joseph Project’s success has led to expansion into Madison, the state capital. Johnson said he hopes the idea will catch on elsewhere.

“The key to this program is the fact that it is faith-based,” Johnson said in an interview prior to Feingold’s comments. “It’s being run by people that aren’t in it for themselves. We had some graduates make that point: The problem with other jobs programs is the people running them are more concerned about their own jobs and funding.”

Johnson, a longtime Wisconsin businessman, this week said Feingold “doesn’t have a clue” how to create jobs. He called on the ex-senator to apologize.

“Sen. Feingold is not only denigrating the Joseph Project, he’s denigrating the dozens of hard-working people in Milwaukee and Madison who have taken these jobs and are trying to break cycles of poverty and improve their communities,” Johnson said in a statement.

The Johnson campaign previously aired an ad promoting the Joseph Project results, and today it announced plans to show the ad again in the wake of Feingold’s comments. The campaign also launched a new digital ad highlighting the anti-poverty program.

A RealClearPolitics average of recent polls shows Feingold leading the race by six points over Johnson.