There is more than one person in this town who has insisted, more than once, that the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation has been good for Wisconsin, and good for Whitewater. It’s been, instead, a failure and a disgrace. At a time when many communities did not have enough money for vital needs, WEDC was trying…
Gluttony
Corporate Welfare, Gluttony, Government Spending, WEDC
$124,000,000 Without Underwriters’ Review
by JOHN ADAMS •
In its first 15 months, a jobs agency created by Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker gave businesses 26 awards worth $124.3 million in all without a formal review of the deals by underwriters. The Wisconsin Economic Development Corp. is reporting to its board on the awards made between July 2011 and June 2013 after reports that…
CDA, City, Corporate Welfare, Development, Gluttony, Government Spending, Local Government, Public Relations, University, WEDC
Another Six-Figure WEDC Loan to an Unworthy Applicant
by JOHN ADAMS •
View image | gettyimages.com 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…
Business, CDA, Corporate Welfare, Economy, Free Markets, Gluttony, Government Spending, Innovation Center/Tech Park
Conservatives Against WEDC
by JOHN ADAMS •
Only a generation ago (not long, really), most conservatives would have rejected something like the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation’s ineffectual, wasteful attempts to manipulate the economy for the benefit of a few insiders’ friends. Today, communities across our state are beset with any number of unctuous men hawking a kind of big-government conservatism, with false…
Business, Corporate Welfare, Gluttony, Government Spending
SHINE Fades
by JOHN ADAMS •
Over at the Gazette, there’s a story that, ever so tentatively, lets readers know that the public-money-sucking SHINE project (to produce the molybdenum-99 isotope for nuclear medicine) isn’t faring so well in the marketplace. SHINE is, after all, the centerpiece of big-government conservatism in Rock County, having received millions in public money to fund a…
Business, Corporate Welfare, Gluttony, Government Spending, Marketing, WEDC
WEDC Slowly Crumbles
by JOHN ADAMS •
WEDC ‘CEO’ Reed Hall Looks Downcast. You Would, Too, If You’d Disgraced All Wisconsin Yet Again. AP Photo. On a Friday afternoon, there’s breaking news across Wisconsin. Having rejected free markets in capital, labor, and goods for cronyism and ineffectual manipulation of the economy, the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation now slowly crumbles: Scott Walker calls…
Corporate Welfare, Development, Gluttony, Government Spending, WEDC
The Failed WEDC’s Revolving Door
by JOHN ADAMS •
View image | gettyimages.com People are attracted to good opportunities, and repulsed by bad ones. At the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation, there’s no better sign of a failed organization than that the agency has become a building that needs a revolving door: Since WEDC’s creation in July 2011 by Gov. Scott Walker and lawmakers as…
Corporate Welfare, Gluttony, Innovation Center/Tech Park
Innovation as a Fad
by JOHN ADAMS •
Innovation is both a genuine development and a fad. In a free society, with unrestricted flows of information, capital, labor, and goods, it’s nearly inevitable that people will improve products and services in powerful, clever ways. Innovation – the word, the idea, etc. – is also a contemporary fad, the jargon of our…
Gluttony, Government Spending, Walworth County
Parkland at a Price of Millions: Bogus Philanthropy at Public Expense
by JOHN ADAMS •
How about a plaque for the site of Walworth County’s parkland scheme, should it be completed? DEDICATED TO ONE PRIVATE SELLER WHO FULFILLED HIS DREAM WITH MILLIONS OF YOUR TAX DOLLARS Last Sunday saw another public-relations exercise in selling the residents of a rural county on purchasing private land, at a cost of millions in…
Economy, Federal Government, Gluttony, Government Spending, Local Government, State Government, Taxes/Taxation, Walworth County, Wisconsin
The Crazy-Wrong Argument on Taxes
by JOHN ADAMS •
A succinct truth: money doesn’t grow on trees. Local government funds municipal projects in one of three principal ways: through local taxes & fees, local borrowing (debt in the form of bonds), or public money from other jurisdictions (grants from the state or federal government). These grants of state or federal public money are, themselves,…