One reads that a big-business recipient of the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation’s taxpayer-funded largesse is moving a plant and jobs…to Mexico:
WATERTOWN (WKOW) — A global power systems management corporation that has received nearly $370,000 in tax incentives from the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation (WEDC) since 2012 is shipping jobs from Wisconsin to Mexico for the second time in three years.
Eaton Corp. announced last week it is permanently discontinuing the manufacture of printed circuit boards at its facility in Watertown, which will result in the elimination of 93 employees there.
“We first informed employees in April 2014, one year ago, that we would be moving the Printed Circuit Board (PCB) line from Watertown and consolidating it into another existing facility in Tijuana, Mexico,” Eaton Corp. Spokesperson Ann Marie Halal told 27 News. “These actions are in response to ongoing business and market conditions and a continued challenging business climate. They will allow the business to continue to compete globally and meet market demand.”
A 27 News investigation from July 2014 found that Eaton Corp. had received over $190,000 in WEDC tax credits despite laying off 163 employees at its Cooper Power Systems plant in Pewaukee in April 2013. The company moved those jobs to Mexico as well.
Those local officials who have so often crowed about the beneficence of the WEDC, as it bestows on white-collar enterprises and big businesses the tax receipts of blue-collar workers, have picked quite the winner in the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation.
How wrong we’ve all been.
These gentlemen haven’t been boosters of an incompetent and slipshod tool of cronyism’s preferential treatment.
Oh, no: they have, instead, been boosters of a foreign aid program.
Astonishing, truly.
(An update, as someone asked: genuine and worthy foreign aid benefits struggling places so that they may overcome poverty, solidify their economies, and advance freedom politically and economically. It has nothing to do with giving money to big businesses that take from others repeatedly and undeservedly.)
Previously, at FREE WHITEWATER on the WEDC:
- At WEDC-Sponsored Tech Festival, Local Company Announces a Move to Ohio
- WEDC Update (subsidizing the outsourcing of jobs to other countries)
- Local Crony Capitalism via the WEDC (and similar schemes)
- The Truth About the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation
- WEDC Board Offers Millions to Subsidize Job Cuts
- WEDC Afflicted with Internal Strife
- WEDC Claims Success by Writing Off Bad Loans