Walker Balked At Peanuts For Amtrak, But Would Offer Billions To Boeing?
The airplane-maker has a wish list of freebies in the billions of dollars:
Boeing says factories for its planned 777X will require total investment of up to $10 billion, but states competing for the work are asked to shrink that tab by providing the site and facilities at “no cost, or very low cost.”ABC News says the states are beginning to "grovel" before Boeing with offers.
Good thing Wisconsin won't participate in this GrovelFest, since we were told the state couldn't afford perhaps $60,000 or so monthly to support Amtrak operations, and that a free market philosophy rules out using state power to pick winners and losers, right?
So Wisconsin has zero chance of landing the business - - especially since the agency that said with a straight face that it was putting together a proposal Boeing had not solicited can't even track the modest loans it's made and lost more managers than Yankees manager George Steinbrenner fired - - but wait!
The propagandists in the Walker administration want you to believe this:
The Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation said in a statement Wednesday that even though the state was not one that Boeing approached to submit a proposal, the agency is developing a proposal anyway, with plans to present it soon.
8 comments:
60k monthly - really? I wonder how much roads in Wi cost monthly. Then again - it probably cost that much and more for Walker's securely services - one of which is to have a state patrol car idling 24 hours a day in his driveway.
"Even with the federal government picking up the line's full construction cost, Walker has said he doesn't want state taxpayers to pay operating costs, projected at $7.5 million a year, starting in 2013. A state transportation official has said state taxpayers' share could be as little as $750,000 a year, if federal aid covers 90% of operating costs, as it does for Amtrak's existing Milwaukee-to-Chicago Hiawatha line."
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Along those lines, the Commonwealth Fund study on passing up Medicaid funding noted that Wisconsin plans to spend $1.9 billion by 2022 in businesses "incentives" and other giveaways to lure businesses like Boeing. But it doesn't want to spend $56 million in taxpayer funds to grab $1.75 billion in federal Medicaid funds.
And by the way, the added stability and lower uncertainty that comes from covering more Wisconsinites with Medicaid is much better for the economy than this "beggar thy neighbor" mentality of giving the farm away to corporations in exchange for a small amount of jobs.
Priorities, I guess.
Yah noh hey,
If Scott Walker became President, he would no longer be Governor. So who would you vote for Hillary or Scott?
The state of Washington is offering Boeing something like $9B in incentives and Missouri is starting with a bid of $1.9B. Both of those states have a trained workforce of aviation engineers and machinists and crucial infrastructure already built, such as very long runways for testing aircraft and flying in massive parts to be assembled. Wisconsin on the other hand is turning into a low wage service economy featuring niche manufacturing, cheap resource extraction and the systematic destruction of our educational system.
Wisconsin doesn't stand a chance in this bidding war and WEDC is merely posing as big-time player to permit Walker to look like he is doing something other than running his mouth and running for President.
I wouldn't vote for Walker as President under any circumstances, save an accidental LSD trip, as I don't want to inflict this sociopath on America. I love my country and would not want to see it raped by a droopy-eyed sadist.
So who would you vote for Hillary or Scott?
So that is what passes for logical quandaries in rightwing cloudcuckooland.
Since he would need to quit being governor to run for President (assuming a primary win, which is doubtful) there isn't much point to the question. He won't be Gov any longer even when the Democratic candidate beats him silly.
The real question is how much of the Republican base will stay home when the RINO Christie is nominated?
http://www.jsonline.com/news/statepolitics/trainmaker-talgo-sues-gov-walker-wisconsin-cg7gu7j-177369571.html
"Talgo's chief executive officer, Antonio Perez, said in a statement that Wisconsin has "used every conceivable excuse, whether fair or not and whether lawful or not, to ensure that Talgo did not receive what it bargained for, including by refusing to pay for the trains that Talgo completed."
"I don't see how any company would in the future choose to do business with the State of Wisconsin when the state has shown that it cannot be trusted to honor contracts that it signed," Perez's statement said."
I predict that early in the next Legislative session, someone will introduce a right-to-work bill with the justification that "We need right-to-work to compete for Boeing." There's no chance that we get Boeing, so why bother with a proposal? As justification for something else...
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