If a group invited a guest speaker who said the world was flat, then that group would be rightly discarded as a credible policy advocate. In Whitewater and other towns, crony-capitalist groups of different sizes proudly declared the Foxconn project a boon for Wisconsin. (Trump, himself, declared it a boon for the whole planet: “the…
CDA
CDA, City, Development, Economy, Local Government, Poverty, Taxes/Taxation
Trump Tax Bill is the Predictable Failure Sensible People Warned It Would Be
by JOHN ADAMS •
In Whitewater, there’s a business lobby that amounts to a right-wing landlord or two, the dogsbodies who follow three paces behind, and the municipal officials who have been, variously, beguiled or browbeaten into asserting that government-directed capital spending means general prosperity. It doesn’t; it’s the great myth of municipal policy. A building here, a building…
Babbittry, Bad Ideas, Boosterism, CDA, Local Government, Politics, School District, Taxes/Taxation
School Board, 8.26.19: Insatiable
by JOHN ADAMS •
School Board Meeting 08/26/19 from Whitewater Community TV on Vimeo. Update, evening of 9.9.19: Although this discussion of tax incremental financing (TIF) took place at a school board meeting, a program like this is (obviously) very much an initiative of city government and special interests. School districts like Whitewater’s have a role on a joint…
Bad Ideas, CDA, Corporate Welfare, Development, Foxconn, Government Spending, Local Government, State Capitalism, State Government, That Which Paved the Way, WEDC, Wisconsin
Foxconn: Hey, Wisconsin, How About an Airport-Coffee Robot?
by JOHN ADAMS •
In Whitewater, there’s a top-notch think tank right-wing landlord’s business group that flacked Foxconn both privately and through that group’s sway over the Whitewater Community Development Authority. The group invited a state operative to spin Foxconn as a tech city of gold, and at the Whitewater CDA one could hear fantastic tales of high-tech wonders…
Bad Ideas, CDA, Corporate Welfare, Development, Foxconn, Government Spending
Foxconn: Wrecking Ordinary Lives for Nothing
by JOHN ADAMS •
One reads – thanks to a pointer from Joe in a comment – that Wisconsinites whose houses were ruined for Foxconn now see the loss of some homes was for nothing: The Jensens had owned a home on nearly 3 acres along Southeast Frontage Road for more than 20 years, close to the planned Foxconn development.…
CDA, City, Congress, Corporate Welfare, Free Markets, Gerrymandering, Government Spending, Local Government, Never Trump, Politics, Republicans, State Capitalism, That Which Paved the Way
F. James Sensenbrenner Heads for the Exit
by JOHN ADAMS •
One reads that F. James Sensenbrenner, the pro-Trump septuagenarian multimillionaire congressman from a gerrymandered district that stretches all the way down to Whitewater, is retiring when his current term ends. Consigned to the minority forever must look unappealing. How time flies! It was not long ago that then-chairman of the Whitewater Community Development Authority was scampering…
Bad Ideas, CDA, Corporate Welfare, Development, Economy, Foxconn, Government Spending, State Capitalism, State Government, That Which Paved the Way, Trump, Water, WEDC, WGTB, WHEN GREEN TURNS BROWN, Wisconsin
It Shouldn’t
by JOHN ADAMS •
Anna Clark (author of The Poisoned City: Flint’s Water and the American Urban Tragedy) asks Why should Wisconsin drain Lake Michigan for Foxconn?: The Great Lakes — five inland seas holding one-fifth of all the fresh water on Earth — are vast, but they are not limitless. So it is alarming that Wisconsin intends to send…
CDA, City, Development, Economy, Government Spending, Local Government, Poverty
Common Council, 8.20.19: Fiscal & Economic
by JOHN ADAMS •
Yesterday, I posted about part of a Whitewater Common Council meeting that addressed a traffic signal at a dangerous intersection. See Common Council, 8.20.19: Misperception. There was another topic at that meeting: the annual audit of the city’s fiscal condition (link below). In another place and time, the fiscal condition of government might be decisive…
Bad Ideas, CDA, Corporate Welfare, Development, Economy, Foxconn, Government Spending, Scott Walker, State Capitalism, State Government, That Which Paved the Way, Trump, WEDC, Wisconsin
Foxconn: Independent Study Confirms Project is Beyond Repair
by JOHN ADAMS •
[embeddoc url=”https://freewhitewater.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/Costs-and-Benefits-of-a-Revised-Foxconn-Project.pdf” width=”100%” download=”all” viewer=”google”] Previously: 10 Key Articles About Foxconn, Foxconn as Alchemy: Magic Multipliers, Foxconn Destroys Single-Family Homes, Foxconn Devours Tens of Millions from State’s Road Repair Budget, The Man Behind the Foxconn Project, A Sham News Story on Foxconn, Another Pig at the Trough, Even Foxconn’s Projections Show a Vulnerable (Replaceable) Workforce, Foxconn in Wisconsin: Not So High Tech After All, Foxconn’s Ambition…
Babbittry, Boosterism, CDA, Foxconn, Mendacity, Reasoning, Science/Nature, That Which Paved the Way, Waste Digesters, WEDC
Junk Reasoning Isn’t Simply a Problem at the Top
by JOHN ADAMS •
Helena Bottemiller Evich reports ‘It feels like something out of a bad sci-fi movie’ (‘A top climate scientist quit USDA, following others who say Trump has politicized science’): One of the nation’s leading climate change scientists is quitting the Agriculture Department in protest over the Trump administration’s efforts to bury his groundbreaking study about how…
Bad Ideas, CDA, Corporate Welfare, Development, Economy, Foxconn, Government Spending, Scott Walker, State Capitalism, State Government, That Which Paved the Way, Trump, WEDC, Wisconsin
Town Residents Claim Trump’s Foxconn Factory Deal Failed Them
by JOHN ADAMS •
The project has failed those residents, as it has failed Wisconsin, and become a cautionary tale for the rest of America. Previously: 10 Key Articles About Foxconn, Foxconn as Alchemy: Magic Multipliers, Foxconn Destroys Single-Family Homes, Foxconn Devours Tens of Millions from State’s Road Repair Budget, The Man Behind the Foxconn Project, A Sham News Story on Foxconn, Another Pig at the Trough, Even Foxconn’s…
Bad Ideas, CDA, Corporate Welfare, Development, Foxconn, Gov. Walker, Government Spending, Politics, State Capitalism, State Government, That Which Paved the Way, WEDC, Wisconsin
Foxconn: Reality as a (Predictable) Disappointment
by JOHN ADAMS •
The Wisconsin Foxconn project was, is, and will continue to be a huckster’s con and a sucker’s idea. Across America – a place of over 325 million – Foxconn is an example of an obviously bad, unworkable idea. In Whitewater and other Wisconsin communities, the men who push this project were either objectionably conniving or…
Babbittry, Bad Ideas, CDA, City, Corporate Welfare, Development, Economy, Employment, Government Spending, Local Government, Poverty, Scott Walker, State Capitalism, State Government, That Which Paved the Way, WEDC
Three Fundamental Failures: Employment, Income, and Poverty
by JOHN ADAMS •
An earlier post addressed Walker’s Fundamental Failure to meet his jobs pledge even after eight years. The record is much worse: years of corporate subsidies and meddling in the marketplace for preferred businesses & political cronies have produced failures of employment, income, and poverty. (Small town officials who copied this approach on the local level, as…
CDA, Corporate Welfare, Foxconn, Government Spending, State Capitalism, WEDC, Wisconsin
Right on Schedule – A Foxconn Delay
by JOHN ADAMS •
Talking up the Foxconn project – a habit of the ignorant or scheming – gets harder all the time. Foxconn looks to have pushed back its construction schedule – to 2021 (past the presidential election). See Foxconn Appears To Push Back Opening Of Mount Pleasant Plant (‘Company Denies Delay But Offers Few Details’). Here’s the…