Yesterday, Gov. Evers was proved right on a key contention about Foxconn.
Earlier this week, Evers released a letter to Foxconn executive Dr. Louis Woo in which Evers mentioned that Foxconn had sought to “suggest several changes to the existing agreement.” Gov. Evers also stated that Woo had also met with Vos and Fitzgerald and implied that they, perhaps, knew of Foxconn’s desire to renegotiate. (The full Evers letter is embedded below.) Evers wrote that
“At that (March) meeting, you indicated that Foxconn intends to suggest several changes to the existing agreement to better align the terms with the evolving project and global marketplace,” Evers wrote to Woo. “To my knowledge, this was the first time either Foxconn or the State of Wisconsin had mentioned amending or changing the agreement approved in 2017.”
In response, GOP Assembly Speaker Robin Vos and Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald denied that they had ever discussed contract renegotiation with Foxconn, and implied that Evers’s comments were more political than factual:
“In his recent comments, Governor Evers seems to be playing to his liberal base and caring more about scoring political points than ensuring the success of the largest economic development project in state history.”
Vos retreats into a complaint about politics that’s a poor substitute for genuine information about the project. (It’s possible that Vos counts for so little in Foxconn’s estimation that they talked to him about mostly nothing and saved the serious discussion for Wisconsin’s governor.) As it is, the communities near Vos’s district have staked huge sums in reliance on his puffery. He’s now soaked in his own flop sweat.
One reads that, in fact, Foxconn confirms discussing potential changes in state pact with Gov. Evers:
After Democratic Gov. Tony Evers and Republican legislative leaders engaged in a back-and-forth Tuesday over possibly renegotiating the state’s contract with Foxconn Technology Group, the company issued a statement that it is holding “good faith discussions” with the Evers administration on “areas of flexibility.”
“Throughout these discussions, we have both operated within the existing contract framework and maintained our long-term workforce, salary, and investment commitments,” Foxconn said late Tuesday night. “We remain committed to continuing to work with Governor Evers and his team in a forthcoming and transparent manner, and remain open to further consultation, collaboration, and new ideas.”
Locally, the Greater Whitewater Committee and the Whitewater Community Development Authority have both trumpeted Foxconn. They would have done no worse to tout perpetual motion machines, fountains of youth, mermaids, or a flat earth theory.
(Indeed, at least fables about mermaids yielded a fine Disney movie.)
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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 is Automation, While Appeasing the Politically Ambitious, Foxconn’s Shabby Workplace Conditions, Foxconn’s Bait & Switch, Foxconn’s (Overwhelmingly) Low-Paying Jobs, The Next Guest Speaker, Trump, Ryan, and Walker Want to Seize Wisconsin Homes to Build Foxconn Plant, Foxconn Deal Melts Away, “Later This Year,” Foxconn’s Secret Deal with UW-Madison, Foxconn’s Predatory Reliance on Eminent Domain, Foxconn: Failure & Fraud, Foxconn Roundup: Desperately Ill Edition, Foxconn Roundup: Indiana Layoffs & Automation Everywhere, Foxconn Roundup: Outside Work and Local Land, Foxconn Couldn’t Even Meet Its Low First-Year Goal, Foxconn Talks of Folding Wisconsin Manufacturing Plans, WISGOP Assembly Speaker Vos Hopes You’re Stupid, Lost Homes and Land, All Over a Foxconn Fantasy, Laughable Spin as Industrial Policy, Foxconn: The ‘State Visit Project,’ ‘Inside Wisconsin’s Disastrous $4.5 Billion Deal With Foxconn,’ Foxconn: When the Going Gets Tough…, The Amazon-New York Deal, Like the Foxconn Deal, Was Bad Policy, Foxconn Roundup, Foxconn: The Roads to Nowhere, Foxconn: Evidence of Bad Policy Judgment, Foxconn: Behind Those Headlines, Foxconn: On Shaky Ground, Literally, Foxconn: Heckuva Supply Chain They Have There…, Foxconn: Still Empty, and the Chairman of the Board Needs a Nap, Foxconn: Cleanup on Aisle 4 and Foxconn: The Closer One Gets, The Worse It Is.