Wednesday, April 17, 2019

Evers wants new Foxconn deal. Cue the GOP bluster, lies.

Wisconsin GOP reality and election deniers lost their minds today.

All Gov. Tony Evers is trying to do by renegotiating a new deal with Foxconn is recognizing reality: that Foxconn has unilaterally scaled back the scope of the project, the goods it may build there and the number of actual human assemblers involved.

If you talked a bank into loaning you a half-million dollars so you could build a four-bedroom house, and you decided to put up a house, say, two-thirds or half the size, the bank would reduce its commitment to you so it could extend the cash and credit you no longer needed to other customers or priorities.

And so while GOP leaders from the Assembly Speaker and big Foxconn winner Vos to Senate Majority Leader Fitzgerald to Racine-area State Senator Wanggaard took turns in response to Evers by lighting their hair and the truth on fire - - Wanggaard was the worst: 

...the governor is "hell bent to kill thousands of direct and indirect Foxconn jobs" and attempting to "unilaterally" renegotiate the contract.
For Pete's sake, Foxconn is effectively trimming jobs, or their projections and expectations, by unilaterally changing the scope and scale of its project. Evers is doing nothing unilaterally except acknowledging the obvious Foxconn-created reality and asking for an honest process in response.

Tony Evers (cropped).jpg

It's clear that what Foxconn had earlier promised, and what Walker continually embraced, manipulated and hyped to serve (unsuccessfully) his partisan political fortune is not in the cards and likely never was.

Even Foxconn founder and Walker ally Terry Gou is saying, 'I'm outta here, too.'

Full Foxconn archive over the last 22 months is here.

So now is the time to try and reduce the state's fiscal pledge to Foxconn because Foxconn has reduced its commitment to the state.

Meanwhile, people in the Village of Mount Pleasant where homes have been bulldozed and farmland scoured in favor of gravel and concrete foundations ought to hold Foxconn liable for the loss of their property and identity, and as I said some long months ago:
Conned and scammed, every public official from Walker on down who spouted a single Foxconn-driven talking point and voted to front the company a single dollar from 'the hard-working taxpayers' Walker is so fond of invoking should hand in their resignations.

Foxconn spins away from commitment; conned, outfoxed Walker should quit

That thud just registering on political seismographs statewide is the sound of Walker's Foxconn con crashing to earth.
Confirming the essence of fourteen months of posts on this blog, Foxconn is backing away from the futuristic factory-building pledge for which gullible Walkerites and their gang of fake conservatives pledged billions of state and local taxpayer dollars, all to shore up Walker's failed job-creating record as he runs for a third term.
Foxconn now declines to say it plans to build type of factory named in state, local contracts
...the company on Wednesday did not offer assurances that it still plans to build the type of liquid crystal display panel plant the contracts cite..
Known as “Generation 10.5” fabrication facilities, or fabs, such plants are the largest and most expensive in the display industry... 
Foxconn’s original plans last year called for building a Generation 10.5 plant, and both the state and local agreements reached with the company define the project that way. 
Sound familiar: Here's a 2017 post about how Foxconn stiffed Pennsylvania
So while the nicely-timed-for-Walker's-re-election giddiness over some job growth here finally after six failed years in office, as well as a race between neighboring states to throw corporate welfare/public inducements Foxconn's way are on - - remember that Pennsylvania put big money on the table for a Foxconn plant that never happened there.
Details.
How Foxconn’s broken pledges in Pennsylvania cast doubt on Trump’s jobs plan

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Where was the GOP outrage when Walker "unilaterally" cancelled the Talgo contract? Where Evers is suggesting negotiating in good faith with FoxConn, Walker claimed he had a mandate and simply cancelled the contract costing the state $60 million in damages, $50 million in built train cars and who knows how much in legal fees when Talgo took them to court for breach of contract? The trains and maintenance facility were projected to create fewer jobs but they were permanent and the Federal government would have picked up over $800 million of the cost leaving the state with less than a million in costs over 10 years.

Every time I drive to Milwaukee I am reminded of the stupidity of Scott Walker and the GOP.