What? WEDC isn't ready on Foxconn?

[Updated from 10/17/17] 

Call it business as usual in the state allegedly open for business.

Update - - Let me rephrase that, as a State Senator says a surprise delay holding up the approval of the state's $3+billion commitment to Foxconn is due to the discovery of an oversight in the deal on the level of a "nuclear bomb." 

But don't fret about it; in fact, there's no need for you to know anything particular about it at all:

WEDC board chairwoman Lisa Mauer confirmed the vote was pushed back because of a particular concern but also declined to provide specifics. She said it was detected late in the negotiating process.

“We want to get this right,” Mauer said. “When something goes awry, you step back and you address that specific issue, and that is what’s going to happen.” 

So I'm sticking with the rest of the post that describes Scott Walker and his WEDC's incurable mishandling of their sworn obligations and the public funds entrusted to them.
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No one should be surprised that the board of the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation has delayed voting on the $3 billion contract with Foxconn (comprehensive Foxconn project history, here).

It seems there was one small detail missing: the contract, so deadline blown. Mark my word: it won't be the only one. 

File it with stories headlined "Cutler throws interception," or "Ron Johnson has empathy deficit." 

Speaking of delays: Remember when Waukesha was supposed to get its new water supply up and running in 2018, and while Walker's DNR goosed the paperwork along, there hasn't been a refreshed water tap turned on, let alone a shovel of earth turned yet for new piping or pumps - - not even a final agreement on where the new supply will be coming from.

All such situations are made worse for taxpayers by intentional, high-level partisanship; WEDC is the same, Madison-based, stumble-prone agency that sat on its hands as the jobs-heavy Oscar Mayer plant was shuttered just a few miles away.

The message sent by Walker and the WEDC to heavily-Democratic Madison and Dane County; go suck lemons.

Here's more information about the state's recent disinterest in retaining good manufacturing facilities and jobs, white collar payrolls and staffs, and existing investments which supplied tax base to support basic public services.

Remind we why we even have a WEDC in the first place, other than Walker wanted a private-sector connected, ideologically-correct state business agency he said would do better than the Wisconsin Department of Commerce he inherited.

And the WEDC is part of the same GOP-led, Walker-era state government that had a hard time all spring and summer performing arguably its most important but routine obligation -- passing a budget - - but also, as we speak, cannot complete the partially-rebuilt Zoo Interchange and shelved for lack of funds,  foresight and common sense the expansion of I-94 past Story Hill and Miller Park. 

All are and were Walker priorities. Since 2003.

On the other hand, you can't expect a multi-tasking world traveler to get everything right, what with pressing issues on the Governor's mind like managing an intra-party crisis with a pouting Robin Vos, or lining up with Big Daddy Trump on the posture of NFL players during the national anthem.

More observations:

*  Perhaps the WEDC misses the steady hand of its founder and former chairman, that same Scott Walker, who abandoned or was bounced from the position because he was having a hard time chairing a scandal-plagued jobs and development agency in a state with only middling growth and, at the same time, selling himself to out-of-state audiences as more than just a competent punter. 

During, yes, a presidential bid which managed to incinerate a million dollars in ten weeks on its way to a 0% standing in national polls. 

*  And speaking of WEDC's past troubles, a shout out to the first reader who can name all the agency's executive directors and senior financial officers in the order in which they quit.

Here's a starting point to the WEDC merry-go-round in the Wisconsin State Journal from August, 2015, and in case the big picture were to escape, the story comes with this citation at the top: 

From the WEDC under fire series.

And that link takes you to the series, with this intro: 

Irresponsible loans, a lack of oversight and personnel problems have plagued the Wisconsin Economic Development Corp. since its creation by Gov. Scott Walker's administration in 2011. 

*  Final point. It has only been since May of this year that the legislature returned to the lending authority it had stripped from WEDC because negative audits had found multiple problems with vetting borrowers or grantees, tracking taxpayer-supplied loans and grants, and so forth.

Yet this is the lead agency which is supposed to shepherd $3 billion in unprecedented public financing over 15 years to Taiwan-based Foxconn with Wisconsin's potential break-even point as far out as 2047.

All at Walker's pre-2018 re-election request.

I'll be more than 100 years old in 2047, but keep my heirs posted.