It’s a tough competition, I know. But I nominate Minnesota Governor Tim Walz as the worst of the worst. This short clip from a press conference earlier today illustrates why. A reporter asks Walz about this post by Bill Walsh at AmericanExperiment.org. Bill went through Governor Walz’s budget proposal, which lists proposed staff increases for all state agencies. Bill tabulated proposed increases of 2,349 employees in this chart. It doesn’t include all state agencies, of which there are a vast number, so it is an undercount, but it hits the biggest ones:

So at today’s press conference, a reporter asked, “Governor, a conservative think tank said that your budget proposal would add more than 2,000 jobs to the state–2,000 more state workers. Does Minnesota need 2,000 more state workers?” Take it away, Tim Walz:

Walz first dismisses the reporter’s question because it was my organization (Minnesota’s only think tank, as Walz well knows) that counted up the new jobs. This is typical: Walz and his minions never respond to facts, they only try, ineffectively, to smear. But it gets worse.

Walz next says that the cost of government is the same in 2023 as it was in 2002. That claim is simply insane. The state’s general fund budget for the biennium 2002-2003 was $26,648,114,000. The current estimate for the 2022-2023 biennium is $51,766,275,000 and Walz’s budget proposal for the coming biennium is $65.2 billion. I have never seen a politician as shamelessly willing to assert things that are obviously untrue as Tim Walz. Maybe Joe Biden comes close.

Next, Walz says he doesn’t know how we could possibly come up with a jobs number when the House and Senate haven’t yet passed a budget. But Bill Walsh’s post and the reporter’s question referred specifically to Walz’s own budget proposal, which itemizes FTEs for every state agency. Is Walz unable to defend his own budget? Apparently so.

Finally, Walz disgorges a word salad. Most people think that Kamala Harris is queen of the word salad, but if so, Tim Walz is the king. Words come out of his mouth, but they don’t mean anything. And they certainly don’t respond to intelligent questions about his own policies.