Across the state, revelation after revelation shows that the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation has been a mistake, a wasteful political endeavor contrary to sound economics. Locally, support for the WEDC, from Whitewater’s Community Development Authority, Chancellor Richard Telfer, City Manager Cameron Clapper, etc., shows not only that they’re ignorant of sound economics, but so politically inept that they’d pick the WEDC as the vehicle through which they’d assert their self-professed sophistication.
Initial public-relations efforts on behalf of the WEDC (whether flashy from the state or dull from local officials) now look like nothing so much as a coat of paint on a brothel.
Months after Gov. Scott Walker’s flagship job-creation agency was formed in 2011, it gave a forgivable $686,000 taxpayer loan to a Sheboygan company planning to build a combination helicopter and corporate jet — even though the company had no experience in aircraft manufacturing and underwriters hadn’t reviewed the company’s finances in years.
But Morgan Aircraft hasn’t created the 340 jobs it promised by the end of 2015, did not make the promised $105 million investment and is not expected to repay the loan….
See, $700,000 WEDC loan to aviation company unpaid @ State Journal.