With the news that Foxconn plans to drop manufacturing at a plant that was supposed to hire thousands of workers, for which people lost their homes, and that was the centerpiece of Scott Walker’s corporate welfare and crony capitalism, Speaker Robin Vos blames…newly-elected Gov. Tony Evers.
Oh, brother: Vos must hope that Wisconsinites are stupid enough to believe that after a year of national economists’ criticism of the project as unworkable from the start (linking to one example of many), the failure of the effort rests on what happened at the ballot box since November.
No, and no again: economists of the left, center, and right all warned this was a bad deal, and doomed to fail.
Vos relies futilely on the prospect that Wisconsinites are too stupid or too ignorant to read serious publications outside the WISGOP media bubble. They aren’t like that; they’re knowledgeable. (Actually, Evers never opposed the program, and did not seek to end it, or even the WEDC: “But Evers did not pledge to stop the company’s plans and has since backed off his plan to eliminate the jobs agency [WEDC] after Republican lawmakers passed new laws curbing his authority over the agency.”)
Update, 1.31.19: In less than 24 hours, WISGOP Speaker Vos is completely refuted in his attempt to blame Foxconn debacle on Gov. Evers:
Mark Hogan, CEO of the Wisconsin Economic Development Corp., said Evers never sought to re-negotiate any element of the Foxconn project.
“I have been involved with the Foxconn project from day one and there never have been any side deals and the contract stands on its own,” Hogan said Thursday. “In addition, there have been no attempts by either the company or the Evers’ or Walker administrations to renegotiate WEDC’s contract.”
He said Evers and his administration “have done a very good job of reaching out to company officials and developing a relationship that will protect our taxpayers’ interests and at the same time, give Foxconn the ability to be successful in Wisconsin.”
….
“All interactions to date with Governor Evers and his team have been constructive and we look forward to further discussions as we continue to invest in American talent and broaden the base of our investment within the State of Wisconsin,” the company [Foxconn] said.
By the way, look how weak Vos’s argument is: under his reasoning, Foxconn was never a sure thing, but in fact a politically-inspired and sustained program that could disappear after an election. Vos’s attack begs the conclusion that the whole program was politically contingent. He’s inviting a dispositive reply, but either is too slow to see that he is, or hopes others are too slow to make a reasonable riposte. Vos may be lacking, but most people are sharp and will see the weakness in his claim.
WISGOP Assembly Speaker Vos hopes that Wisconsinites are stupid, yet his dark hope is in vain. He presents a laughably weak argument, but national economists long ago saw through this project, Wisconsinites saw through its key backer in November, and both will be remembered only with deserved derision.
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, and Foxconn Talks of Folding Wisconsin Manufacturing Plans.
This was a work from the start, as you have exhaustively documented. There were several tells that this was going south, fast. The first was the blatantly inflated jobs forecast. Anyone schooled in the biz of electronics assembly could have told Walker that this was pure bullshit. Walker, quite obviously, didn’t consult anyone that understood the biz.
The second was the glass-factory “oh, by the way”. That Foxconn didn’t have a glass supply lined up when they planned this operation is proof that he never planned to build it anyway. Terry going back the the trough for 2/3 of a glass factory was breathtaking chutzpah.
Foxconn is a proximate cause of Walker spending more time with his family. Foxconn is now attached to Vos and Fitzpatrick like a lamprey eel on the side of a lake trout, slowly bleeding the political life out of them. Their taking over of WEDC will only hasten the leaching.
It is certainly looking like Foxconn was mostly intended to get Walker re-elected. They sugared the state, far and wide, with “Innovation Centers”, meant to prop walker up in the outstate hustings, all paid for by our taxes. The UW “center of Excellence” was similarly financed. None of that worked, so Foxconn bailed. Given Terry’s predilections, who is surprised?
Aren’t Republicans supposed to be the party of fiscal sanity?
Thank you, but I’ve been thinking these last few days about comments you made about the glass panels. Your observations were a matter of materials science and production economics, carefully described. Someone advancing this project had an obligation long ago to answer that analysis, through reason applied to fact. No one pushing Foxconn bothered to make even a half-hearted effort to reply to serious objections like those you raised. Non-engineers (and I’m in that category) could still appreciate your assessment and should have expected a detailed, responsive reply to those concerns. A detailed, responsive reply never came, to any of the serious objections to the project, voiced by economists and engineers from left to right, across America.
These men who flacked Foxconn (most of them) went to school, but it’s as though they either didn’t learn or stopped caring about leaning. Trump, Walker, Vos, Fitzgerald, local development gurus in Whitewater: their proposals are no better than witchcraft or alchemy, however oft-repeated.
This state – and this small city – have had years of economic witchcraft with which to contend, far worse than any legends about Whitewater’s supposedly haunted past.
After all, no one wasted far over a hundred million or destroyed a home a family loved over a long-ago legend about witches in Whitewater.
No, we did those wasteful and destructive things in the 21st century, over a series of transparent WISGOP and Trump absurdities.
Good riddance to it all.
Tom Nichols, author of The Death of Expertise, would/ will have a field day with this case alone. Trumpism’s proponents: the incurious and the anti-intellectual, who are hostile to facts and science and experts… for behold- it is by God’s Divine Providence that all the 2016 election experts were proved wrong and anointed Donald Trump as POTUS (paraphrasing from Sarah Huckleberry Sanders).
Deals like this are good for our state cuz- “Wisconsin’s open for business!” … “Trump made this deal happen for us!” and …. “MAGA!” Insert other brisk “f@$# your feelings”-type slogans here.
Good riddance to this money grabbing mobbed-up bullshit in our backyard. Maybe the Wisco Kid and Pothole Scott can look forward to spending time with “family” at the Gray Bar Hotel.
All those WISGOP slogans, repeated incessantly, have been like nails scratching on a chalkboard. In time, we’ll yet again be able to enjoy, unbothered, the sounds of nature in this beautiful city and state.
You know, I enjoy reading Nichols’s Twitter feed, but I’ve not yet read his book. Having just finished a good book, you’ve inspired me to take up The Death of Expertise. Just a few clicks on Amazon, and there it is, on my iPad. Much appreciated.