The “tough choices ahead” for state and local governments that are the focus of a hearing today in the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee deserve the best thinking of our smartest economists, administrators and elected officials.

Unfortunately, committee Chairman Darrell Issa, R-Ca., has opted to lead an exercise in political posturing rather than a serious examination of the problem. Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, the lead witness at today’s hearing, forced his state into tough but false choices, engineering $140 million in tax giveways for his corporate supporters which he then “offset” by stripping away the bargaining rights of public employees.

Today’s hearing involves neither oversight nor reform. Everyone involved in it must surely have better things to do.