Phase I of the Fox-con ends tomorrow. Can we salvage something with a normal WEDC handout?

This was a development you could see coming over the 2+ years Tony Evers has been governor of Wisconsin. While it's not the middle finger many of us would want to see, it's also an outcome that likely is the practical choice in a list of subpar options.

Today, I’m announcing we’ve reached a new agreement with Foxconn. Read my full statement here ⬇️ pic.twitter.com/jzpjTBg4bt

— Governor Tony Evers (@GovEvers) April 19, 2021

This agreement will go in front of the WEDC Board tomorrow, and while I am concerned that we aren't seeing the deal posted through the media or on the WEDC Board's website, I'm going to wait and see what the terms are before I get too freaked out.

It serves as an admission from Foxconn that this thing isn't going to be close to what they promised, which is why they are fine with negotating the original Fox-con down to what will go before the Board tomorrow. But that's not going to stop WisGOPs from pretending that all that was needed for the Fox-con to work was to give it more time, especially from Assembly Speaker Robbin' Vos (R-Foxconsin), who put himself on the WEDC Board in no small part so he could try to continue his in-district scam.

“Foxconn is making concessions because they are having their back up against the wall even though they are meeting the goals that were set by the last administration and by the legislation we enacted,” Vos said, referring to the original deal cut by @ScottWalker.

— Patrick Marley (@patrickdmarley) April 19, 2021

"The goals of the last administration," Robbin'? You mean these goals?

Do you think we had 5,200 people working at Foxconn in December, or will have 9,100 working in 8 months? Hell, Foxconn couldn't even reach these MINIMUM numbers of jobs.

In fact, GOP hacks like Vos have consistently said it is a good thing that the Fox-con had those minimums put in place to limit the cost to state taxpayers. It's like these dopes don't realize that we have videotapes and Twitter and other records. It's so insulting.

Yes, there is a decent part of me that would want Evers to tell Foxconn to F off and sue them in an attempt to force Foxconn to pay us back for all the costs they've forced taxpayers to take on with the large amount of infrastructure expenses that were part of this white elephant. But that will take years to try to get anything from them (and likely won't get anything, because they'll skip out overseas), and I also know that there is a whole lot of cleared land that isn't doing a thing right now. So I suppose the Evers Administration figures it has to be salvaged in some way.

So my guess is that this will get restructed into your typical WEDC "jobs package", and if something gets added on the site (either by Foxconn or by someone else), there might be some way to get a result. And maybe it'll allow enough property taxes to come in from improvements on these miles of land to keep Racine County communities from going bankrupt due to the great debts their dimwitted local yokel officials were snookered into taking.

Because if those communities go belly-up in the coming years, state taxpayers will be on the hook for 40% of that cost, which would be around $360 million of the $900 million in infrastructure debt that has been taken on. And that's likely the real reason we will see the renengotation Fox-con tomorrow - because Wisconsin has to find its way out of the massive hole that the former grifter Gov left us in, and getting something is better than the near-nothing we have today.