Grim new reviews for Walker Foxconn folly billed to taxpayers

They say there's no such thing as bad publicity. 

Here's the counter-argument today, first in a long, must-read piece carried by the Madison Capital Times which, among other things, looks at the risks facing Racine County and the Village of Mount Pleasant where Foxconn bulldozing and local borrowing are well underway:

Based on an examination of Foxconn's corporate history, Asian business practices and the stark realities of the LCD panel production industry, the likelihood of a flat panel factory in Mount Pleasant seems unlikely any time soon — if ever. Neither does the prospect of anything close to 13,000 “family supporting” jobs... 

For Racine County, the situation is more pressing... The total county cost was recently projected at $911 million, a liability of more than $10,000 per county household...

So a village of 26,000 has a TIF with a total cost of about 90 times the village's recent annual budget. The result is massive bond issuance — a level of debt for Mount Pleasant and Racine County that far exceeds Wisconsin’s so-called “statutory prudence” level. 

 The Journal Sentinel weighs in with its own stunner: 

Wisconsin might not get a Foxconn plant of any size, analysts say

Foxconn and the state's economic development agency still pledge that the Gen-6 facility will create "up to 13,000 new full-time jobs," as enshrined in the contract. But a blur of mixed signals and shifting pronouncements over the past year has turned Wisconsin’s signature job-creation project into a nonstop guessing game — one that involves the most expensive package of corporate subsidies from a U.S. state and the largest-ever in Wisconsin by a factor of 50. 

I've been tracking the FUBAR Walker Foxconn campaign maneuver-cum-'project' for the last 21 months. Plenty of background here.

A Foxconn Fever primer

[Updated continuously from June, 2017] This archive with more than 295 posts, and even more links and references that track, explains and unmasks Wisconsin's public awards of $4.5 billion in state and local funds. Not to mention the waivers of routine judicial and environmental reviews for a promised now- cancelled perhaps back-on-again-but-smaller?? Foxconn factory  that would have required a massive daily diversion of Lake Michigan water and produced nearly 800 tons of air pollution emissions annually over Racine County open space, farm and wetlands.

By the way, you can file all this in your folder titled "Why Scott Walker can never again get elected to public office in Wisconsin."