Walker's Foxconn cover-up gets worse

Updated from 10/25/17, 10/29/17): 

10/31/17 update:

State GOP Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald opens the WEDC secrecy door a crack. Getting cold feet and sweaty palms, perhaps?, knowing a legal storm is coming with political consequences even worse:

Those charged with approving $3 billion in subsidies for a flat screen plant should be able to read the final contract before voting on it, the Senate's top leader said Tuesday.  

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10/25/17 update:

"WEDC hammered by Carpenter" Battleground Wisconsin Podcast

We welcome WEDC board member and State Senator Tim Carpenter to discuss the secrecy.
LISTEN NOW - EPISODE #317
Download MP3
Citizen Action Press Clips

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The devil is deeper in the details of Wisconsin's multi-billion-dollar public deal for Foxconn because the details were drawn up and remain hidden in darkness.

This is Gov. Walker's intentional abuse of power at the expense of the public's right to know as he prepares to run for re-election on the Foxconn deal he negotiated and is already featuring in repetitive pre-election social media postings.

Scott Walker‏Verified account @ScottWalker  Oct 9More Last week Foxconn announced that Mount Pleasant would become the home of its $10B facility. Thousands of #jobs on the way! #WIWinning

This is a dangerous advancement of Walker's 'chamber of commerce mentality' governance which he's used to block any increase in the rock-bottom minimum wage, install GOP gerrymandering, weaken environmental protections, undermine public and private-sector unions and give the ideological right ballot-box advantages through Voter ID and other intrusions of state power.

I'd been asking on this blog how long would the cover up continue of the acknowledged repairs and rewrites being made to the contract behind closed doors for Wisconsin's largest-ever public expenditure.

Now that we're into week two of the cover-up, the perpetually-chaotic, process-deficient and audit-failing and out-sourcing subsidizing and scandal-burdened Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation, (WEDC) - - a Scott Walker creation which serves his partisan needs even after his strategic, face-saving withdrawal as WEDC chair in 2015 - - has announced it will not release the final contract document until after it is signed.

You know, a process to be respected - - which is always the last-ditch dodge by politicians and their bureaucratic operatives who draw up these processes so they can suppress the public with imperious contempt.

"We won’t be changing our process relative to when the contracts are available," [WEDC Executive Director Mark] Hogan told members of the Legislature's audit committee. "Any contract that WEDC signs is available to the public (once it is signed)."

So forget about ever seeing why the original contract draft was created with a flaw the size of a nuclear bomb, according to Milwaukee legislator Tim Carpenter.

State Sen. Tim Carpenter, D-Milwaukee, called the process "crazy." 

"This whole process really stinks. It’s not protecting taxpayers," Carpenter said in an interview. "I’ve said several times, I need to see the contract, I need to look through it." 

The contract puts $3 billion of our money at risk, Carpenter said, and will distort funding for numerous other priorities for least fifteen years - - and triggers another $764 million from local taxpayers across Racine County where Foxconn will build - - but we don't get to see the paperwork and its history that lays out the who, when, where and why?

An analogy:

Car dealer to customer: Here's the bill for your new car. Sign here. 

Customer: Where's my contract? 

Car dealer: You can read it after you sign. 

Customer: After? I want the details first. This is the most expensive thing I've ever bought. It's a 15-year deal and my whole family chipped in. 

Dealer: Trust me. It's exactly what we talked about. Except for that big other thing.

Customer: What big thing? 

Dealer: Don't worry. I got it right. Just sign here.