Sometimes one would prefer to be wrong, rather than right. The waste, errors, exaggerations, and lies of the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation are such a case: Madison — Three Senate Democrats asked Wednesday [6.12] for a criminal investigation of Gov. Scott Walker’s signature job creation agency. The request comes after an audit last month found…
Corporate Welfare
Business, Corporate Welfare, Government Spending, State Government, Taxes/Taxation
Corporate Welfare in America’s Dairyland (Yet Again)
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
The practice of thriving, multi-million-dollar companies taking ordinary taxpayers’ money to subsidize their private ventures has two aspects: (1) it’s wrong, as it takes from those with little and gives to those with much and (2) it’s sadly commonplace. Consider the case of Husco International, a private company in Wisconsin with an expectation of “more…
Corporate Welfare, Federal Government, Government Spending, Innovation Center/Tech Park
No, That’s Not Why There’s an Innovation Center
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
Perhaps, just perhaps, Whitewater’s a laboratory for testing the theory that if one repeats a flimsy explanation long enough, it will become true. Over at the Daily Union, there’s a recent story about a university project that’s developed a smartphone app that allows users “to link organized recreational activities with social media.” One reads that…
CDA, City, Corporate Welfare, Government Spending, Press Release, State Government
Press Release Tips for the WEDC
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
Let’s assume you’re a troubled, controversial public-private hybrid agency in Wisconsin, like the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation. While spending vast sums of public money, you decide to issue a press release announcing taxpayers’ your largesse. You must know – and hope residents of a small city don’t know — that you’re politically toxic, across the…
CDA, City, Corporate Welfare, Government Spending, Innovation Center/Tech Park, Law, Official Misconduct, Open Government, State Government, Taxes/Taxation, Wisconsin
The Truth about the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
A person should be able to make simple distinctions, as between the sensible and foolish, or practical and impractical. Sometimes those distinctions should be clear, and as stark as the difference between the contents of a sample cup and a glass of Chardonnay. You’ll hear a lot locally over the next few days about a…
Corporate Welfare, Government Spending, Local Government, Taxes/Taxation
Grant-Chasing
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
Janesville now has her hundreds of thousands for a bus. It should be no surprise that those who have flacked every possible public program as the Next Big Thing (no matter how neglectful of dire needs) would herald state and federal grants as though they were genuine, private productivity. The fawning need to tout the…
City, Corporate Welfare, Government Spending
Whitewater Uses Public Money for Big Corporation While Big Corporation Invests in Whitewater Mexico
by JOHN ADAMS • • 4 Comments
On Tuesday while Whitewater’s City Manager, the Janesville City Manager, and the Janesville Transportation Director were advocating for Whitewater to spend public money for a bus route that primarily benefits $2.3 billion-dollar Generac, Generac was investing forty-six million dollars in Mexico. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel has the story: Generac Holdings Inc. has agreed to acquire…
Business, City, Corporate Welfare, Development, Planning
Whitewater’s Common Council Session of 11.20.12: 25 Questions about the Generac Bus
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
Most of Tuesday’s 11.20.12 Common Council session concerned the 2013 municipal budget, and of that, a half hour’s discussion addressed whether to give Generac Power Systems, a thriving corporation, ten-thousand dollars to bus its workers to and from other cities. That’s not all, of course: one heard the company-specific program touted as the hope for…
CDA, City, Corporate Welfare, Government Spending
The City of Whitewater’s 2013 Budget: CDA & Bus
by JOHN ADAMS • • 2 Comments
Whitewater’s Common Council considered four budget items at length during her 11.13.12 session. I’ll address now the first two of those four, immediately below. The Community Development Authority Budget. Someday, one hopes, Whitewater’s Community Development Authority won’t require tens of thousands from the City of Whitewater’s general fund, as it does now, since the CDA…
City, Corporate Welfare, Green Energy Holdings, Waste Digesters
The End of the Waste Digester Proposal in Whitewater
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
Earlier this week, I posted about a closed-session agenda item of the Tech Park Board about ‘negotiations’ with Green Energy Holdings concerning a waste digester in the city. Of the scope of those negotiations I had no idea. As readers surely know, I think there are sound objections of municipal finance, community development, economic policy,…
City, Corporate Welfare, Government Spending, Press
Ceaseless Press Errors About the So-Called ‘Innovation Express’
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
There’s a recent story over at the Daily Union that repeats a prior distortion about thousands in public funds for a bus to cart a few private workers of multi-billion-dollar Generac to their homes far outside Whitewater after work. The whole proposal is an exercise in crony capitalism. I’ve written about the mistaken use of…
City, Corporate Welfare, Green Energy Holdings, Waste Digesters
The Tech Park Board and a Waste Digester
by JOHN ADAMS • • 1 Comment
Bad leaders and ideas often go in only one direction: from bad to worse. One sees the truth of that in the agenda for today’s Tech Park Board meeting: 13. ADJOURNMENT to Closed Session, TO RECONVENE APPROXIMATELY 45 MINUTES AFTER ADJOURNMENT TO CLOSED SESSION, per Wisconsin Statutes 19.85(1)(e) “Deliberating or negotiating the purchasing of public…
City, Corporate Welfare, Government Spending, Local Government, Taxes/Taxation
The City of Whitewater’s 2013 Draft Budget: Crony Capitalism
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
So a multi-billion-dollar corporation (market cap $1.77 billion) wants thousands of taxpayer-dollars from a small city to fund a bus the corporation uses to shuttle her workers to and from other towns where they actually live. The city being imposed upon is Whitewater, Wisconsin, a tiny municipality, like many others, struggling just to balance her annual operating budget. Whitewater’s situation involves juggling to find ways…