Fatal Flaw In Modified Mining Bill Fails To Fix Fitzgerald Fiasco

The Journal Sentinel offers a detailed account of possible changes to be proposed in the mining bill blown up in a fit of special-interest parliamentary mania by the recall-threatened Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald.

Here is a link to the story.

And while it is clear that some Senators are trying to satisfy and mollify the industry-compliant State Assembly while also absorbing repeated signals from federal officials that wholesale changes to existing law just won't pass muster - - perhaps a contradiction too big to be resolved during Fitzgerald's tiny and politically-created window established for approval - -  I don't see, nor have I heard, that any authentic effort is being made to work with the people most affected by this entire uproar- - the Bad River Ojibwa  who live and grow wild rice near land and on waterways close to the site of the proposed iron ore mine in Northwestern Wisconsin that produced the mining bill and the fearful Fitzgerald's fiasco and hissy fit in the first place

No doubt whatever bill passes is going to produce challenges in court over environmental, procedural, legal and fiscal issues - - delaying any new mine in Wisconsin for untold years - - but why are legislators and other officials still ignoring the Ojibwa and the treaties they signed, nation-to-nation, with the Federal government more than 150 years ago?

And thus adding another level of delay.

This entire process - - from the Assembly's secretive bill writing with industry insiders at the table - - in light of revelations of secretive redistricting bill drafting, not so unusual for this group of Republicans, eh? - - to Scott Fitzgerald's imperious hijacking of the established hearing and drafting procedures last week - - has served to highlight the decline of the content, process and especially the leadership - - led by the brothers Fitzgerald - - in the Legislature.

It began when Republicans won both houses a year ago and went on a one-party rampage at the public's expense that began with Walker's collective bargaining dropped bomb and continues, as we speak, with the Fitzgerald Family fiasco.

Mining Bill, Walker Rescue Should Continue To Fade

[originally posted, 8 p.m., Tuesday, March 6:] Unable to convince all 17 members of his caucus that the ugly mining bill he supported should become law, and facing the possibility of an historic recall election in the spring, State Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald has again taken control of the process - - a losing move  - - by moving it from the Senate Floor where it was voted down Tuesday to a committee he chairs - - Senate Organization - - where he and his lobbyist allies can keep the bill warm while they plot their next - - and losing - - moves.

So the spin cycle goes into high gear, along with continued finger-pointing away from the mirror the GOP should be staring at, since this fiasco began with the Assembly's secretive process and continued through Fitzgerald's demolition of the special committee he appointed to create the compromise, bipartisan bill he scuttled in favor of the special-interest turkey he he followed to its 17-16 demise.

I would predict the following from the Fitzgerald/Walker Republican camp:

*  Participation in an amped-up PR strategy coordinated by the mining company, the WMC, friendly unions and the Governor that will distort a false jobs vs. the environment dichotomy and turn it against the bill's opponents.

*  Threats by the company to take their mining plan elsewhere.

*  More visibility by the Governor - - who wants a win on the bill because he, too, is facing a recall election, and the possibility of more bad employment data later this week and through the spring.

Walker will urge the company to set aside their exaggerated threat to leave, playing faux leader and peacemaker, and he will claim the mining bill is a silver bullet solution for the state's jobs crisis, when, in fact, a mining permit - - if the company submitted and won an application - - would face still face considerable state, federal and legal obstacles putting approval many years away.

* A special session called with fanfare and hot-off-the-press news releases by the Governor, within days - - all theater - - reminding folks of his last last special session on jobs that got us some pro-gun and other extraneous, ideologically-motivated/no-jobs' legislation.

That non-performance drained the drama from special sessions, so now our expectations for results are pretty low.

I'd rate the success of these transparently-political ploys as very low, especially if opponents stay united and focus on their strengths: respect for the the state's clean water heritage, respect for public participation in policy-and-decision-making, and respect for Native American treaty rights.

The 17 votes against the bill are solid, in part because the Assembly bill and its roll-out were so bad, while Fitzgerald's cancellation of the Senate select mining committee, its work and bill drafting compounded the Assembly fumbles because Fitzgerald's moves were so ostentatiously clumsy, imperious and anti-democratic.

Furthermore, Walker and Fitzgerald, and their allies in both houses look like the politically-obsessed industry pawns that their actions have underscored.

Proponents of the bill and this particular mining proposal have no one to blame for their failure Tuesday than themselves.

Some free advice to the other side:

*  Take people and the land more seriously.

* Don't jam the public.

*  Stop writing legislation - - whether for mining giveaways or self-serving redistricting maps - - behind closed doors.

*  Work with local residents on serious, comprehensive economic development plans, from the north woods to low-income neighborhoods in Milwaukee and Racine.

Update, Tuesday, 10:07 p.m. - - As predicted:

March 6, 2012

Statement by Gogebic Taconite, LLC President Bill Williams on State Senate Rejection of Mining Reforms:

Senate rejection of the mining reforms in Assembly Bill 426 sends a clear message that Wisconsin will not welcome iron mining. We get the message. GTac is ending plans to invest in a Wisconsin mine. We thank the many people who have supported our efforts.

For Further Information Call: Bob Seitz, Arrowhead Strategies, LLC at 608-310- 5323

Update, Tuesday 11:50 p.m.

To which the Wisconsin League of Conservation Voters responds:

For Immediate Release: March 6, 2012
Contact: Anne Sayers, Program Director, 608-208-1129 (direct), 608-658-0186 (cell), anne@conservationvoters.org

Statement of Wisconsin League of Conservation Voters' Executive Director Kerry Schumann on GTAC's announcement that they are leaving Wisconsin:

"Gogebic Taconite's announcement that they are leaving Wisconsin confirms that the company was never interested in responsible mining.

 Further, it illustrates Governor Walker's eagerness to place polluting special interests above Wisconsin's working families. His failed leadership led Gogebic Taconite to believe that they could change the law, so they alone could pollute Wisconsin waterways with deadly chemicals, silence the voices of our citizens and shift the costs from the mining company to the taxpayers.

Responsible mining requires companies to work with stakeholders and minimize environmental impacts. That's the Wisconsin way and Wisconsin voters know it. The bi-partisan Senate vote to reject the open-pit mining bill was a victory for Wisconsin families and clean drinking water."

Robin Vos looms over twin WI debacles; a devastating pandemic & more Foxconn fiasco

It's not a coincidence Wisconsin is roiled right now by two major negative stories - the worsening COVID-19 catastrophe - 

Record-shattering 4,591 coronavirus cases as state catches up on reporting; record 218 COVID-19 hospitalizations

- and the FUBAR Foxconn fiasco in Mt. Pleasant - 

Three years later, the factory — and the jobs — don’t exist, and they probably never will.

- and that GOP Assembly Speaker Robin Vos played key roles in launching both of these realities into Wisconsin homes and an exhausted political environment.

Basically, Vos's role in these twin failures speaks volumes about the dangers of power concentrated in a key state position held by an ultra-partisan who keeps betting badly with other people's money and lives that he and his corporatist ideologies know better.  

As more attention is focused on Foxconn's failure to provide the payrolls and products it promised in exchange for billions in subsidies engineered by then-Gov. Scott Walker, let's remember that some of us have warned for more than three years that his scheme was a self-serving mirage, with leading local Racine County winner with your money - the incautious homefield booster Robin Vos had been on board from day one:

Wisconsin Assembly passes $3 billion for Foxconn

“Usually if you rush things, FYI, it means the deal stinks,” said Democratic Rep. Gordon Hintz, an opponent of the project who noted that Foxconn has made promises to build factories elsewhere and never followed through.

But Republican Assembly Speaker Robin Vos argued that the project was an “American field of dreams” that will transform the state’s economy and should not be passed up. 

Voters in Vos's district have a chance to hold him accountable for his arrogant, hyperbolic miscalculations, but that's not likely to happen. More about that in a few paragraphs. 

Then there is the literally-more-painful calamity side-by-side with the Foxconn debacle - the killer pandemic rampaging through the state that keeps producing some of the country's worst data.

Vos, along with GOP Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald, convinced the State Supreme Court to overturn Gov. Evers' 'Safer-at-Home' COVID-19-prevention order when the virus was not yet out of control here.

The latest Fitzgerald-Vos attack on Evers' plan was at the time just the Republican's latest grab at Evers' powers that predated his 2018 swearing in - 

- and the result has been since the Fitzgerald-Vos 'win in May has been a predictable surge in COVID cases, hospitalizations and deaths.

The most-recently reported state COVID-19 data for Monday, October 19 showed new daily cases had spiraled by a factor of 13 to 3,777 in the five months since May 13 - the day of the Court's ruling. 

And the state's current reported cumulative COVID-19 case total on Monday of 173,891 has ballooned by a factor of 16 since the 10,902 total cases had been reported on May 13. 

To which Vos and Fitzgerald have responded by only continuing related battles against subsequent Evers' efforts to cool off Wisconsin's status as a national COV-19 hotspot while remaining into a seventh month of vacation and while also refusing to put forward a battle plan they'd said early they just wanted a chance to present to Evers 

So you ask yourself: How is that Vos could exercise this constellation of powers: quick situational litigating, quick situational legislating, and the opposite - stupendously long-delayed policy-making and long-lasting recesses - even during a pandemic.

Some of the explanation is institutional: The Assembly Speaker in Wisconsin is a key cog in Wisconsin's already unusually powerful Legislature and Vos has not been shy about exercising his authority, by, for example:

* Unilaterally raising his members' per-diem allowances;

* Stacking the Legislature's budget-writing committee with reliable right-wing allies;

* Expanding his staff;

* Commandeering state aircraft;

* Hiring private lawyers for partisan advantage at taxpayer expense;

* Hiring some more:

In all, Republican lawmakers have spent more than $5 million over the last two years on private attorneys at taxpayer expense. The largest part of that amount — $2.1 million — went toward defending lame-duck laws that limited Evers’ powers, according to bills released under the state's public records law.

* Plus and this is important - managing a grotesquely lopsided and self-serving gerrymandered legislative remapping in 2012 that keeps Republican legislators and Vos's GOP colleagues effortlessly in office despite stronger Democratic statewide turnout, as Isthmus explained in 2018.

Dems sweep statewide offices in midterms but remain underrepresented in Assembly

* And Vos, having had success before, is threatening to do it all over again again - regardless of efforts by Evers and others to open up the process.

Wisconsin Republicans dismiss non-partisan redistricting plan

"He can form whatever kind of fake, phony, partisan process he wants to create, but I have no doubt in the end we will do it the way we always have, which is to follow the constitution," Republican Assembly Speaker Robin Vos said. 

That's vintage Vos - arrogantly on the attack and ready to use his considerable powers - but powers exercised recklessly for partisan advantage can contribute to an unnecessary and unapologetic sacrificing of people's lives - in a pandemic - and the sacrificing of public dollars - for an already wealthy Taiwan-based multi-national business allied with Donald Trump and his re-election strategy, all to chase after corporate canards and phantom jobs under partisan pretenses into filled Racine County wetlands and plowed-under farms. 

If anyone can find public purpose or democratic affirmation or serious hope for a repaired Wisconsin in the near future in any of that, feel free to leave a comment. 

State Journal Writer Highlights Mining Bill's Ignorance Of Ojibwe Treaty Rights

Finally: a mainstream media focus on Obijwe treaty rights blown off by Assembly and Senate leaders who put together mining bills with far greater attention paid to the demands of an out-of-state mining company.

I'd been hammering away at this matter for weeks ("Fitzgerald's Fiasco"), so to Ron Seely at the State Journal, thank you for this, and the rest of your piece:

Armed with its status as a sovereign nation and powerful treaties with the federal government, the Bad River Chippewa tribe has the legal muscle to do what Democratic opponents of an iron mine proposed for northern Wisconsin have so far been unable to do: halt or delay the project.

Those powers, say experts on Native American law, appear to have been both underestimated and misunderstood by proponents of the mine, including Republican legislators who have been criticized for failing to consult with tribal members as they work on a bill to streamline permitting for the mine.

"All of us are going to get an education in federal Indian law," said Larry Nesper, a UW-Madison scholar in Great Lakes Indian law and politics.

WI GOP keeps expanding 'governing' by cop-out/opt-out

Republicans hold majorities in both Wisconsin Legislative chambers where the GOP 'style' of governance these days is all about ducking accountability, living by laziness and evading even the pretense of responsibility.

You may remember that former GOP Governor Scott Walker got caught trying to quietly remove the state's commitments to truth and public service from the "Wisconsin Idea," but GOP legislators have taken that assault on Wisconsin fundamentals to what seems like a bottomless low.

How else to describe GOP-led Legislature's nine-month, fully-paid vacation during the pandemic's 2020 rampage and nearly year-long focus on further diminishing of Gov. Evers' administrative powers rather than writing or promoting or cooperating on a pandemic-fighting plan? 

A thoughtless contempt for public health and life itself summed up in August, when despite exploding COVID19 caseloads and deaths - official data, here - then-Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald approvingly said people were 'complying if they want to' with Governor Evers' statewide masking mandate, and that was OK because things on the pandemic front were "going pretty well." 

We've had about a half-million COVID19 cases since Fitzgerald all but dismissed it as freedom's price for spreading the virus as you please - a sick scenario just now expanded because Legislative Republicans have wiped out Evers' masking mandate.

Though Republican legislators' last-minute cover-your-a** amending may fail to prevent the loss of almost $50 million a month in federal emergency food aid related to pandemic unemployment in Wisconsin - a risk Republicans are willing to take with people's most basic needs.

Your new Wisconsin Idea in action. Not by inaction, but by deliberate, calculated, calibrated malfeasance.

But while we're focused on this poisonously-partisan power-grab, please note the bonus bit of breezy, take-it-or-leave-it nonchalance on another important front that WI GOP Assembly Speaker Robin Vos has added to his party's retreat from the hard work of leadership.

Not content to rest on the word-smithing chops he displayed in April when decked out in heavy-duty pandemic-protective gear declared it "incredibly safe to go out" - 

- Vos has now laid down a new do-as-you-please marker for contractors doing business with the taxpayer-funded State of Wisconsin.

CEO's and their bean counters haven't been given news this good since Ron Johnson sent them an even bigger dollop of dollars through the 2017 Federal tax 'reform' bill.

Vos's latest step away from accountability was an excuse he opted to confer on the Republican-championed Foxconn fiasco bulldozed into the Village of Mt. Pleasant which, according to state auditors, has yet to hit - and won't hit for three more years - its hiring targets at the radically reduced and redefined project in Mt Pleasant. 

No matter to Assembly Speaker Shoulder-Shrug who explained that he'd put himself on the state development commission to make sure Foxconn is allowed the contracting equivalent of Fitzgerald's 'comply if you want' - more or less. 

"I wanted to make sure that Foxconn and the people of Racine County are treated fairly and that we had a deal that, more or less, stuck to the original goals that we set."

Now I'm not recommending you offer the GOP-defining 'more or less' standard or the party's 'comply if you want' option when discussing things with an IRS agent or a State Trooper with a radar gun, but I do recommend the statement below issued Wednesday by some of Vos's constituents about what contract compliance by Foxconn in Mt. Pleasant looks like to them, more or less:

------------------------------------------

For Immediate Release

Contact: Kim Mahoney

262/721-8248

abettermtpleasant@gmail.com

VOS AND WANGGAARD CONTINUE TO GASLIGHT PUBLIC 

ON FOXCONN DEVELOPMENT 

“Foxconn is failing to fulfill financial obligations in Mount Pleasant while local spending continues in preparation for a factory that is not happening.” 

MOUNT PLEASANT, WI FEBRUARY 3, 2021 - A recent article in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel regarding the ongoing contract renegotiations between the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation (WEDC) and Foxconn related to the controversial LCD factory which Foxconn promised to build in Mount Pleasant featured several statements offered by state representatives, Robin Vos and Van Wanggaard, about the project that were not just misleading, but factually incorrect. 

In response to a question on whether new state legislation would be needed to renegotiate the contract that WEDC has determined to be broken, Senator Wanggaard claimed “Foxconn is in substantial compliance with their existing contract...” This is false.

According to the written agreements, Foxconn is required to (1) build a 10.5 Generation LCD factory, (2) create and maintain approximately 13,000 full-time jobs, with an average salary of at least $53,875 plus benefits, and (3) invest approximately $10 Billion, mostly Area I in Mount Pleasant. There is no ambiguity about those terms in either the State contract or the local Development Agreement.

Further, Foxconn was required to have improved Area I by a minimum of $685 Million by December 31, 2019, but in its Performance Report submitted to WEDC, Foxconn reported that it had spent only $208.3 Million.

Foxconn is also required to add a value of $347.3 Million in 2020, and another $358.2 Million in 2021 in order to reach a total minimum assessed value of $1.4 Billion by January 1, 2022, and a minimum tax bill of $31.1 Million for the next 26 years. Having submitted no new development plans since 2019, and with the absence of any open bid packages for work to be performed in Area I, it is difficult to imagine how they will achieve that valuation. Indeed, Foxconn has not come even close to fulfilling their financial obligations in the State and local contract. 

Representative Vos would have the public believe it doesn’t matter what Foxconn makes, stating the decision to withhold tax credit payments to Foxconn is "a bunch of B.S" and “Do you care or does the taxpayer care if they’re making a TV or a circuit board? It doesn’t really matter.” Actually, what Foxconn makes does matter in order for it to meet its contract obligations.

The Generation 10.5 LCD factory Foxconn promised to build is beyond massive. It would have required at least 10,000 full-time jobs to operate and a $10 Billion investment to construct. The supply chain of manufacturing would have employed thousands more, and it would have required 10,000 construction workers each year for several years. 

In the last three years, Foxconn has constructed only two buildings in Area I - the “Multi-Purpose Building,” a 120,000 square foot warehouse in which there are a small number of employees reportedly assembling circuit boards; and a 1 Million square foot building that was supposed to house the LCD factory. Instead, a small number of employees are assembling coffee kiosks and a portion of the building is being used for storage. Foxconn’s disappointing efforts netted a total of 281 jobs in 2019, far less than their goal of 2080 full-time jobs.

According to the Wisconsin Division of Executive Budget and Finance, Foxconn’s LCD factory building is not even equipped to fabricate glass substrates but rather, “it appears to be a place equipped to perform assembly operations, and may be better suited for demonstration purposes rather than as a viable commercial glass fabrication facility.” 

It is unlikely that Foxconn will ever employ more than 1,500 full-time employees, which will be relegated mainly to low-level assembly work. A far cry from a technology hub that was promised to be the “eighth wonder of the world.” 

According to the Journal Sentinel article, Representative Vos claims “the agreement was centered around jobs, wages and the company building facilities,” but then he turns around and says “...All that really matters is how many people they employ and what they pay them.” 

Mr. Vos conveniently leaves out two key components of the contract - the building facilities and the investment necessary to build them. 13,000 full-time jobs, at least $53,875 per year plus benefits, a 20 Million square foot manufacturing facility, and a $10 Billion investment. 

Those components are the only reason the State agreed to offer nearly $3 Billion in tax credits and why Mount Pleasant agreed to spend approximately $1 Billion in infrastructure and land acquisitions. 

Senator Wanggaard and Representative Vos point out that Wisconsin has not paid any tax credits to Foxconn, but conveniently fail to recognize the hundreds of millions of dollars the Village of Mount Pleasant and Racine County have already spent on property acquisitions, infrastructure and financing. 

They want you to forget about the 80 homes demolished for the project, many of which were unnecessary, and 2,500 acres acquired for the project, most of which sits vacant. Nevermind the $113 Million spent on an electric substation and power lines that will be paid for entirely by ATC’s ratepayers, and millions owed by Mount Pleasant to the Racine Water Utility for water Foxconn isn’t using. 

Our local and state leaders, like Senator Wanggaard and Representative Vos, have known for years that Foxconn was not going to build what they promised. That knowledge did not prevent them from sinking our Village into unprecedented debt. Nearly $1 Billion of debt that is guaranteed, in part, by Wisconsin taxpayers if Foxconn defaults.

WEDC has declared the original deal with Foxconn to be broken and requires renegotiation,  while our local politicians tell us that the local agreement, which calls for the same factory, jobs and investment, is intact and operational. It is not.

Mr Wanggaard and Mr. Vos aren’t just gaslighting their own constituents into thinking everything is fine. They are covering for the colossally irresponsible deal they struck three years ago that is turning out exactly as many experts anticipated. 

####

A Better Mt. Pleasant is a nonpartisan, community organization dedicated to advancing a fair,

accountable and transparent local government in Mount Pleasant, Wisconsin.

Yesterday, the WI GOP played doctor. Today is phony financial planner day.

Yesterday, Robin Vos played physician's assistant and failed wordsmith.

And Friday, Vos and fellow loose cannon Scott Fitzgerald went back to pretend law school to tsk-tsk Attorney General Josh Kaul - - a Democrat: horrors!! - - with your tax money and grab more state power for themselves.

Republicans argue Kaul must get permission from them before settling a broad set of cases. Any money from settlements must go into the state's main account, they contend. 

The leadership duo claims to be better, rightful stewards of state dollars, yet they are the architects of the Foxconn fiasco subsidies and a road system statewide allowed to degrade while being expanded to serve Foxconn in Vos' district at massive public expense.

We don't yet know whether the scandalously-'planned' and politically-greased  Foxconn project will collapse quickly or shrink into broke-promised irrelevancy - - or whether politicians will be bold enough to say "mea culpa" and cut the public's losses - - but one thing we know for sure:

WI GOP Assembly Speaker Robin Vos managed in a state without two spare potholes-filling nickels to rub together to steer to and through his district a quarter of a billion federal and state road-and-interchange widening dollars that will trigger sprawl beyond bulldozed Mount Pleasant farms even if Foxconn never diverts a gallon of Lake Michigan water to produce a single big screen LCD TV.

Look at it as an adjunct to the gerrymandering Vos helped create that serves his own interests - - interests his caucus wants to protect through litigation, voter suppression and power-grabbing lame-duck legislating.

Vos, as the Cap Times Dave Zweifel points out, is a pure bully.


Fitzgerald's legal acumen has been on display before. 

 

Bi-partisanship in WI further replaced by GOP Buy-Partisanship

[Updated, 9 p.m.] The WI Legislature's Joint Finance Committee has become a one-party fiasco, and Republicans, under their misspelled Buy-Partisan approach, call that winning.

This corruption of governmental process in Wisconsin is the logical [sic] outcome produced when WI Republicans lost the 2018 elections and quickly passed power-grabbing laws to prevent newly-elected Democratic Governor Tony Evers and Attorney General Josh Kaul from doing the jobs voters handed them at the ballot box fair and square.


The GOP scheme which protected donors' access to favor banks and codified one-party rule in Wisconsin - - and that relegated quaint democratic processes and pesky elections to a partisan GOP burn pit - - is working as expected:

The Latest: Republicans won’t let Kaul settle lawsuit

Update: Oh, it's more than 12 lawsuits. Popcorn making and world traveling Vos is way too busy to do all that lawyering, even with his pricey, new in-house boutique staff.] 

The lame duck laws which Walker, Fitzgerald and Vos created through secrecy and spite meant that Gov. Evers could not turn to his Attorney General, as Walker did moments into his first term, and direct him to sue the federal government over health care coverages.

Or that a sitting Attorney General, like the Republican whom Kaul defeated, could repeatedly sue over health care and pollution controls.

Kaul now needs a hall passes signed by the legislature's Finance Committee which is controlled by Vos and Fitzgerald, 12-4.

Their message to big business, special interests and Team Trump: Along with a complaint State Supreme Court, we've got your back. 

Committees in government can be where ideas die quiet deaths. In Fitzwalkerstan, the Hacks and Bellhops Caucus has taken that up a notch

I would say this is a double-standard, but that understates what the gerrymanders and little dictators have implemented here, as I noted the day after the elections which Republicans lost:

Vos, Fitzgerald and the rise of little dictators

In Wisconsin, GOP-initiated election suppression is moving from voter ID and election-day pressures to post-election nullification.

Vos plays the Foxconn card in WI budget deadlock

The mess that is the state's over-budget, pothole-pitted and red-ink stained highway system and looming fiscal fiasco just got even more intense.

Wisconsin GOP Assembly Speaker Robin Vos raised the stakes in stalled budget discussions among Republican leaders by worrying aloud that delays in funding the completion of I-94 North/South expansion through Racine and Kenosha Counties could harm the state's ability to successfully convince electronics giant Foxconn to open a much-rumored mega-plant in the area,

It would be premature to say that Vos is laying the groundwork for a 'who lost Foxconn' position, but Vos and Gov. Walker and Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald are all big boys and seasoned pols, so they will read this section of a Journal Sentinel story as a clean signal that Vos is willing to use the Foxconn opportunity as leverage for his preferences in what is becoming a really big and multi-layered political, transportation, fiscal, development and employment story:

Vos did point to another company besides Foxconn that is weighing a move to a new industrial park in the Village of Caledonia, in northern Racine County. That unnamed business is concerned about the status of the I-94 North-South project, the speaker said.

One of the things that they worry about is the Highway K interchange being done and being able to be competitive and move their products on the interstate,” Vos said

For his part, Vos has long been concerned about finishing work on the North-South leg and providing more road funding to help make that and other highway projects happen.

But Walker and Senate Republicans have refused to raise taxes to help fund roads.  That disagreement has contributed to a budget stalemate at the Capitol.

If the I-94 project is ramped up, other projects - - new, under construction or already delayed - - would have to be shoved farther down the list, thus raising their ultimate cost.

Or Walker and Fitzgerald would have to cave on their opposition to more taxes and fees.

And none of them are willing to come out full-bore for tolls because that policy shift would take years to implement, faces legal hurdles, and brings with it a particular odiferous whiff of anything stamped Made in Illinois.

So all of these genius fiscal conservatives bear a share of the blame for repeatedly over-spending on bigger and wider new highways while ignoring budgeting basics and the deteriorating condition of the roads we already have. 

Robin Vos is having himself a signature (dooms) day

The GOP-led WI Legislature should just declare Friday, January 28th "Robin Vos Doomsday" throughout the land, as no Assembly Speaker will ever lay claim to having spread so much ill wind and literal illness statewide in a 24-hour period, by:

* Pushing across the finish line an end to the Governor's statewide masking order while the COVID19 pandemic is still spreading, and;

* In the process throwing away nearly $50 million in related federal funding, bringing the WI GOP legislature's federal funds forfeitures through COVID19 mismanagement to $75 million - details here.

WI GOP Assembly Speaker Robin Vos in protective equipment while claiming in April that it was "incredibly safe" to go out into the pandemic and cast an in-person April election ballot.

* Appointing himself to WEDC, the state development agency board, which is trying to salvage something from the failing Foxconn fiasco which Vos, Walker et al foisted on taxpayers for partisan purposes, and;

* Now being able to keep a closer eye on a few things, as I noted a couple of years ago:

WI GOP Assembly Speaker Robin Vos managed in a state without two spare potholes-filling nickels to rub together to steer to and through his district a quarter of a billion federal and state road-and-interchange widening dollars that will trigger sprawl beyond bulldozed Mount Pleasant farms even if Foxconn never diverts a gallon of Lake Michigan water to produce a single big screen LCD TV.

Look at it as an adjunct to the gerrymandering Vos helped create that serves his own interests - - interests his caucus wants to protect through litigation, voter suppression and power-grabbing lame-duck legislating.

* Using his taxpayer-paid perch to help rewrite completely the entire Foxconn fiasco with statements like these:

“I strongly supported getting rid of the old Department of Commerce and creating a new and more nimble economic development agency, that’s what WEDC is, and I want to make sure it stays that way and does not become a political operation with different values than we had when the bill was originally passed....” 

“I think we need to do everything we can to make sure it’s successful so that the folks that I represent don’t end up, because of the actions of the governor or the WEDC, getting stuck with the bill,” Vos said.  

And by "Governor,' Vos means Evers, though the record shows he should have said "Walker," as Bruce Murphy so succinctly put it, here:

WISCONSIN’S $4.1 BILLION FOXCONN BOONDOGGLE

Gov. Scott Walker promised billions to get a Foxconn factory, but now he’s running away from it

* And, finally, proving that the Wisconsin gerrymander receiving national attention which has allowed dim bulbs like Fitzgerald, Tiffany and Grothman to shine in Congress while giving Vos power statewide beyond a modicum of rationality or fair play is a permanent obstruction to Wisconsin ever recovering its long-lost progressive heritage.

Which was the plan which began with Walker's corporately-driven ascension, has deeply strengthened the right's strong ideological grip statewide and now is producing Vos's permanent, pandemic-heightened malfeasance.

The rats are swimming from the Sinking Ship Trump. Well, not everyone.

Scott Walker just punched his ticket for a seat on the slow train to the Dullards & Defeated Politicians' Boneyard: 

Departing Gov. Scott Walker told supporters Tuesday he would be giving speeches, emphasizing tax cuts and working to re-elect President Donald Trump after Walker leaves office next week.

Yes, his choice is throw his abundance of insincerity, superficiality and winking meanness into foisting on the American people and the rest of humanity a child-snatching, woman-grabbing, dictator-loving, minority-baiting Presidential disgrace whose documented dishonesty Walker can use as a template for improvement, even duplication.

And include in the always growing Walker 'false' speaking record is the idea that he'll be out there '"working to re-elect Donald Trump" Walker will also be building up for his own next campaign I.O.U's fromTrump, Pence and all the other GOP candidates he'll praise with shopworn, boilerplate praise, talking points and rote, inauthentic testimonials.

Remember, for Walker, Rule #1 is "Always Be For Walker."

And yes, there's his thoroughly self-parodying definition of "the dignity of hard work!" he announced on Twitter a few hours after he attacked a landslide-winning public servant who was committing to a presidential run of her own that is going to last a lot longer through her hard work than the 71-day, million-dollar-punting fiasco which Walker quit.

And now he's announcing speechifying and being the MAGA hat warm up act as a job?

My, God: this guy isn't even playing chess, let alone, checkers one move ahead.
  
For the record, I'd said after the November election which cost Walker his job, and when his henchmen were plotting lame-duck thievery:

The ultimate fix to this embrace of legislative trickery is for Evers, through a veto, to force the Republicans' next gerrymander into Federal court, where perhaps an honest re-districting in the name of fair elections will send Fitzgerald and Vos finally into retirement.

Where they can freely accept comped seats at Walker's rubber-chicken lecture series 'How we screwed Wisconsin taxpayers and unions for fun and profit.'

And a few days later:

You know, I'd intended to retire the photograph below of Walker once he left the Governor's mansion for appearances, perhaps with fellow has-been David Clarke, on the big-check-and-rubber-chicken circuit, but I'll hold on to it for the 2020 State Supreme Court race should Walker's hand-picked candidate - - apparently unsatisfied with already having received one Walker favor to get appointed to the State Supreme Court - - try and remain there for a full ten-year term through a power grab enabled by Walker's trusty lieutenants and one last hand-drawn "SKW."

And this choice of 'work' was one I also predict for this Walker pal and fellow-bootlicker-to-the-rich:

It's fitting that Scott Walker and Paul Ryan, two of the biggest self-promoting phonies ever produced by the Wisconsin Republican Party, are exiting stage right at the same time...

I believe Ryan will get a six-figure pension, Walker about $57,000, along with post-retirement speaking fees and board positions at organizations which propped up their campaigns and egos will the more immediate providers of golden hammocks.

As you remember, the maneuver on behalf of the Walker favored Supreme Court nominee was a Scottholed political-bridge-too-far even for a generally amoral GOP Legislature, but now I guess I'll have to hold on to the photo because Walker is swimming upstream against a congested tide of rats abandoning Donald Trump to climb on board his ship.

Because that's where money still is.

Think he'll tell the various friends of the Kochs and Sheldon Adelson and a garden variety of Tea Party romantics who will drive to the low-rent hotel conference centers out on the beltways and hear Walker tell tales of teacher bashing in Wisconsin that he lost to one of those teachers by 30,000 votes? 

And, by the way, don't forget the guy on your next annual GOP bean feed program was just dumping on the Green Bay Packers team he'd long pretended to support with a video of a toilet flushing.
Living, and posting the dream.
  

In-depth biz report calls Foxconn deal 'disastrous...hollow...nakedly political'

The con is out there in the open now, and not one person Wisconsin will be caught off guard by this Bloomberg news story and headline:

Inside Wisconsin’s Disastrous $4.5 Billion Deal With Foxconn

The only surprising thing is that the story cites 49 sources - - a number far higher than any local or state media had managed to interview to produce such a timely, authoritative report: 

Interviews with 49 people familiar with Foxconn’s Wisconsin project, including more than a dozen current and former employees close to its efforts there, show how hollow the boosters’ assurances have been all along...

The only consistency, many of these people say, lay in how obvious it was that Wisconsin struck a weak deal. Under the terms Walker negotiated, each job at the Mount Pleasant factory is projected to cost the state at least $219,000 in tax breaks and other incentives. The good or extra-bad news, depending on your perspective, is that there probably won’t be 13,000 of them.

I will say 'I told you so' because I have been saying it in one way or another since Walker announced the deal he'd sketched out on a single piece of paper.

Here is one of my earliest 2017 posts, and notice that it's Bloomberg raising the alarm:

About Walker's '18 campaign 'Foxconn' over-under 

I'd mused on Facebook about guessing Walker's Foxconn over-under number through the November 2018 election because we knew he'd use the proposed deal to distract from his failed 250,000 new jobs promise that is 70,000 jobs and 2.5 years short of its January 2015 deadline..  

Anyway, Bloomberg News carries a reality-check op-ed which says, in effect, 'don't be conned' by the jobs the factory could create: 

Anyway...the only way to make it viable is by keeping staffing low and leaning on automation to boost productivity. This LCD factory will be either labor intensive or highly automated. It can't be both... 

Just this past year, Foxconn is reported to have pledged investments of $27.5 billion...That's more than Hon Hai has spent in the last 23 years. 

Terry Gou didn't get where he is today by blithely spending money on huge factories. Instead, he's learned to entice leaders into thinking big, and then letting them pay.

Here's a snippet of the Foxconn archive's index that is now closing in on 300 posts:

* Walker is quoting a Trump reassurance on Foxconn. Please!

What's worse than a Walker reassurance on Foxconn? Trump's. 

* On-again, off-again Foxconn project, with its bulldozing, subsidy-hogging and environmental risks, wags Wisconsin.

Foxconn Fiasco shows arrogance of WI's leader class. Again.

* Vos, Fitzgerald tell a cover-your-as* whopper about Foxconn and Tony Evers

WI GOP fib gets jump on Lie of the Year Award

*  The bond-rating firm Moody's issues warning about local government's Foxconn risks.

Here's a new way to measure Walker's Foxconn folly

* Foxconn now says it cannot say 'if, when and which' items it will manufacture or assemble in Wisconsin. The billions of dollars in subsidies granted, and other permits, permissions, perks and approvals were based knowing that Foxconn would build an LCD TV facility. How is this deal not now voided?

We in Wisconsin will say 'I told you so' because the deal was arranged by a self-centered, self-indulgent Governor grasping for re-election who had already failed to coordinate all the resources of the state - - all the agencies, all the budgeting, all the legislation his one-party rule handed him for eight years - - to create 250,000 jobs in the state he said would be done after one four-year term.  

For example, in August, 2017:

On jobs, and moral leadership, a persistent Walker con

He's willing to distort and drain the state treasury of $3 billion, commit local government and their taxpayers to very expensive infrastructure perks for the company, and fill in wetlands with the people's water beneath stands of forests and along streams or on shorelines and at the bottom of lakes to do one thing:

To get you to forget he ever promised to create 250,000 new jobs in Wisconsin in four years, and failed to hit the number after more than six-and-a-half years in office with a GOP-led legislature that gave him every tax cut and pro-business program in their playbook...

Job-creation? Republican-boilerplate. No sweat. He'll just snap his fingers and watch that WEDC he set up and chaired until it got too embarrassing - - and which we learn today to no one's surprise that it continues its sloppy, slothful, scandalous behavior by not yet verifying Foxconn's bona fides - - to show Democrats how easy job-creation really is. 

The state's top jobs agency has yet to run a full check on the finances and market position of Foxconn Technology Group — the Taiwanese company seeking up to $2.85 billion in cash from state taxpayers in exchange for thousands of new jobs. 

In the past, taxpayers have suffered after the Wisconsin Economic Development Corp. neglected to make careful checks on companies receiving state incentives. 

So during the 2018 campaign that is obviously underway, and assuming the Legislature capitulates to Walker's whim and delivers what he needs, you will hear "Foxconn!" minute-by-minute from Walker for months on end.

And if he's asked about that broken 250,000 new-jobs pledge he said he wanted his incoming cabinet appointees to tattoo on their foreheads, Walker will pivot to Foxconn, Foxconn, Foxconn, distracting and fudging the numbers as he did with a quiet amendment on Twitter this morning to Foxconn PR about spin-off jobs: 

Scott Walker‏Verified account @ScottWalker  2h2 hours ago2 hours ago2 hours agoMore Foxconn’s historic investment will create some 22,000 ripple effect jobs -- proof hard-working WI families are winning!

Even though the projected spin-off jobs total has been lowered substantially by an independent analyst....

And when the bloom falls off the Foxconn rose, as it has already begun to do with a smaller-by-$100 million projected Foxconn payroll and the diminished spin-off job projections making the news, Walker will just stand behind the smaller numbers he did today on his Twitter feed today without any clarification and shout "Foxconn" even louder...

He's proven time and time again, and historians will carve it into his post-gubernatorial assessment, that if it wasn't about himself, and couldn't be spun it to his advantage regardless of the public impact, Walker was never interested.

A final snippet of archived relevant posts:
---------------------------------------------

* Foxconn now says it cannot say 'if, when and which' items it will manufacture or assemble in Wisconsin. The billions of dollars in subsidies granted, and other permits, permissions, perks and approvals were based knowing that Foxconn would build an LCD TV facility. How is this deal not now voided?

Foxconn changes the channel; old, new questions remain

* WI got federal funding to add driverless trucking technology on I-94 to help move Foxconn manufactured goods to Mitchell Field. But if there's no factory envisioned on the Foxconn site now, why spend the highway money on the 'upgrades.'

Should Wisconsin still finance Foxconn special driverless I-94 shipping lane? 

 * Foxconn has cancelled its Racine County factory. So it doesn't need the host of water diversion and air pollution permits the DNR awarded it. Or the facilitating federal clean air enforcement exemption handed over by the US EPA along the SE WI lakeshore north of the Illinois line.

No Foxconn factory, no need for those air and water permits and permissions.

* January 30 produced the news that Foxconn was scaling back its WI project and would not be building a factory, as promised - - and publicly-funded - - in Racine County. Here's short course in how that came to happen.

Short roadmap to today's Foxconn news

* Protection for taxpayers was not adequately built into the Foxconn deal until WI State Democratic Senator Tim Carpenter blew the whistle and got it inserted.

Let's correct Walker Tweet about doing us Foxconn deal favor

* The headline says it all.

Breaking news: Foxconn says "not building a factory in Wisconsin."

* Oh, boy. Talk about a Friday news dump: Foxconn has 'adjusted' its hiring and recruitment timelines.

Walker's WI looking conned and outfoxed 

* Oh, here's a surprise: Foxconn missed its 2018 hiring goals. All they had to do to qualify for state subsidies was to create 260 jobs. All they could muster was 178.