Call it business as usual in the state allegedly open for business.
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).
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.
Here's more information about the state's recent disinterest in retaining good manufacturing jobs, white collar payrolls staffs, and existing investments.
And the WEDC is part of the same GOP-led state government that had a hard time all spring and summer performing arguably its most important but routine obligation -- passing a budget - - but also is as we speak failing to complete the partially-rebuilt Zoo Interchange and has shelved for lack of funds and foresight the expansion of I94 past Story Hill and Miller Park.
More observations:
* Perhaps the agency misses the steady hand of its founder and former chairman, a certain 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
* 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:
Ye this is the lead agency which will shepherd $3 billion in unprecedented public financing over 15 years to the Taiwan-based Foxconn with Wisconsin's potential breaker point as far out as 2017..
All at Walker's pre-2018 re-election request.
I'll be more than 100 years old in 2047, but keep my heirs posted.
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).
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.
Here's more information about the state's recent disinterest in retaining good manufacturing jobs, white collar payrolls staffs, and existing investments.
And the WEDC is part of the same GOP-led state government that had a hard time all spring and summer performing arguably its most important but routine obligation -- passing a budget - - but also is as we speak failing to complete the partially-rebuilt Zoo Interchange and has shelved for lack of funds and foresight the expansion of I94 past Story Hill and Miller Park.
More observations:
* Perhaps the agency misses the steady hand of its founder and former chairman, a certain 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
* 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* You do know that its only in May of this year that the legislature returned the lending authority it had stripped from WEDC because negative audits had found multiple problems with vetting borrowers or grantees, tracking loans and grants, and so forth.
Ye this is the lead agency which will shepherd $3 billion in unprecedented public financing over 15 years to the Taiwan-based Foxconn with Wisconsin's potential breaker point as far out as 2017..
All at Walker's pre-2018 re-election request.
I'll be more than 100 years old in 2047, but keep my heirs posted.