Sunday, May 27, 2018

Yeah WisGOP, I do want Foxconn to fail. It's the best outcome for Wisconsin

When word leaked out this week in the Asian financial media that Foxconn might be changing what types of screens it would make in Wisconsin, and might be reducing the size of its investment in Wisconsin, it caused a mini-firestorm in the state. Naturally, Foxconn tried to walk back that story by saying "Oh no, we're still moving ahead as planned." But let's be real. That word wouldn't have leaked out in the Asian press if there wasn't truth behind it, and it's even understandable that Foxconn would want to switch product lines to better match consumer needs.

However, it also means that Scott Walker and WisGOP were selling something to taxpayers last year that won't be what Foxconn is going to give us in the end. Not in products, and likely not in the amount of jobs (if this thing ever gets built at all). Since the public already hates the Foxconn, the WisGOPs now have to try to talk their way out of this mess for the next 5 1/2 months to avoid getting their asses kicked at the ballot box in elections over it.

Which explains the GOP's new tactic - blaming Democrats for wanting Foxconn to fail for political advantage. Bradley Foundation/WisGOP mouthpiece Christian Schneider illustrated this with a piece of bilge titled "Why Wisconsin Democrats cheering for Foxconn to fail. Hint: his name is Scott Walker. (PS- Don't spend any money the J-S until they fire that lying shill).

It's a tactic straight out of 2006-era GOPs saying "If you don't support the Iraq War, you don't support the troops!", and "You're just Bush-bashing!". It tries to shout down any analysis of whether the GOPs' plans and oversight of the project is worthwhile. As you can see, Schneider was merely doing his job of repeating the lines of top WisGOP politicians.


(Psst, Scotty- there won't be 13,000 jobs. That was a number your consultant made up.)


Of course, this is the same GOP that turned away major tax savings for expanded Medicaid and a 100% federally-funded train project in the early 2010s solely out of spite for the Obama Administration. So of course these guys can't comprehend opposition to something beyond pure politics.

Sorry, but the real reason we hate the Fox-con is that it is costing us billions of dollars to create some temporary jobs, while shortchanging the rest of the state for years to come. It's simply not worth what we're spending, and not worth it to steal resources from so many other parts of the state to do it. A great example came later in the week, within 10 miles of the Foxconn site, as another Racine County community found out it will have to wait to see their Main Street get fixed.
The Wisconsin Department of Transportation announced the planned reconstruction of Highway 20/83 has been delayed until 2019.

In an online post on Wednesday, the village stated, “This one-year push for work by the DOT is due to budgetary constraints related to project work in FY 2018.”...

One of the DOT’s requirements is for municipalities to update their infrastructure before road reconstruction, which is why Waterford is tearing up downtown this summer.

The repavement plan in place assumed the DOT would reconstruct the road a few months later in the fall of 2018. Now it looks like it’ll have to hold up for a year.
Huh, think they might have had money for this project if Walker's DOT hadn't decided to funnel $134 million to upgrade the roads around Foxconn?

The delays in Waterford illustrate the two fundamental dishonesties in Walker's and WisGOP's defense of the Fox-con.

1. That somehow only the Foxconn plant could result in these jobs being added, and that other work projects around the state and work for firms aren't being reduced because so many resources are being sent to the Foxconn-sin region. The delays in the project in Waterford is but one of many examples in both the public and private sector where someone is losing because Foxconnn is getting all of the attention.

2. That governments have infinite amounts of money, and that Foxconn isn't hurting the chances of other priorities being funded. If the DOT is already saying "we now don't have the money to complete Highway 20-83 in Waterford this year," what's going to happen in the next budget, when quite a bit of the $1.35 billion in tax incentives to build the Foxconn plant will have to be paid back? Bob Lang of the Legislative Fiscal Bureau already has said that both the General Fund and the Transportation Fund are facing $1 billion budget deficits for 2019-21, and it defies belief that other programs won't be hurt because of the Fox-con.



Of course, this isn't even taking into account the environmental damage that will occur due to Foxconn's exemptions from state and federal law, the debt that Racine County residents will be paying back for years because of their own local subsidies to Foxconn, and the ugliness of having people driven out of their houses to make way for the needs of one company. Much of this can be reversed and mitigated if Foxconn never comes to Wisconsin.

So yes, it would be much better if we had the fiscal and economic flexibility to have more projects and programs be completed around the state instead of having all the funds be sent down to the southeastern corner of the state. Which means if you value the overall health of the State of Wisconsin, then you should hope that Foxconn pulls out of Racine County, before this crooked boondoggle becomes even more of an albatross around the necks of Wisconsin taxpayers. And before the rest of the state loses even more business as a result of Walker and WisGOP wanting to put all of our eggs in the Fox-con basket.

4 comments:

  1. Fox Con is a huge scam backed up by lie after lie. Walker does not even qualify the "up-to" 13,000-jobs claim anymore. It's now 13,000 jobs. Recall as well Trump and Walker's Fox con press conference last Summer. Trump said, the Fox Con CEO told Trump "off the record" that Fox Con wanted to invest $30 billion, not $10 billion. Not even Fox con backed up that lie. http://malcontends.blogspot.com/2017/08/the-silence-of-fox-con.html

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    1. They really are trying Big Lie tactics. At best, the amount of investment and jobs is "up to", and Walker, WisGOP, and most media just assume it'll happen.

      Also not mentioned, $1.5 billion comes from the Foxconn factory itself, and they only need to have 3,000 employees making $30K to avoid any clawbacks at all. And within 15 years, they could close down and taxpayers have no recourse, as the contract is written.

      We need to call out the BS at every turn, including the unchecked stuff coming from the cheerleading corporate media.

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  2. I am sure Walker was thinking only of his national profile when he entered into talks with FoxConn. If his fantasy of 13,000 jobs and creating a new tech center in SW had worked out, he would have been a shoe-in for some sort of political office at the national level. Because he is incompetent, it won't work out. It will be interesting to see how he attempts to spin this failure to the people of Western WI.

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    1. It absolutely was delusions of grandeur from Walker, combined with the cynical mentality of "the people won't ask about the price tag and other details." The insider pundits also thought the voters would only care about "jerbs", and never saw that this thing had a lot of concessions and costs that went well beyond your typical WEDC giveaway.

      They have been proven very wrong, and it's been a good example of how Dems should ignore what soccer moms might say, and stand up for principles and consistency. They've done a good job of pointing out "We want jobs too, but this is about the worst way to do it."

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