Before we get to the news of the day, which is Foxconn's planned company-wide contraction, let's go back and nail down how and why Walker led us into and leaves behind an historic, multi-billion-dollar boondoggle.
Let's remember how the WEDC came about and that it's bottom line was more about Walker's political future - - at least that was the plan - - rather than business lending, which proved to be, shall we say, problematic.
Walker spent much of his 2010 run for Governor and post-election prance quintupling down on his 250,000 new jobs pledge.
It was big and bold. It was a floor not a ceiling. It would be the bright trail on the Wisconsin business rocket ship. It was going to be tattooed on the foreheads of his incoming cabinet. Sometimes he even threw in that he'd create 10,000 new businesses - - and even more!! - - but that riff turned sour after the Journal Sentinel caught him counting in non-profits, sports teams, fund-raising groups and one-person LLC's.
So Walker got the legislature to create the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation, throwing away the Wisconsin Department of Commerce, recasting the Department of Natural Resources as a "chamber of commerce mentality" one-stop shop for rubber-stamped easy permits and make-believe pollution enforcement, and awed corporate Wisconsin CEO's with a private-sector rich WEDC board that had none less than Walker himself as WEDC chairman.
Why would Walker take the twin risks of a) putting a specific, memorable number on the jobs promised, and b) giving himself another job with actual power that meant specific results would be expected, too?
Because he knew he was going to run for President, and wouldn't this grad plan nearing fruit look great - - perhaps Reaganesque - - in ads and talking-point laden campaign appearances before the tycoons who would fund it!
But the truth was that Walker had no experience in either the private sector or in using government to stimulate the economy.
As Milwaukee County executive, he sat on valuable county-iwned real estate downtown ripe for development.
He tried to turn over the office that managed it to his long-time gofer Tim Russell who eventually went to prison for stealing money from a Veterans Fund Walker kept assigned to the County Executive's office even though County ethics officials had urged it be transferred. Details, here.
And during a debate with Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett in the 2010 election, Walker could not name a single job he had created in low-income Milwaukee.
I wrote it up at the time:
It's an understatement to say that WEDC got off to a rocky start artificially kept afloat with propagandized boosts.
There were searing audits - - one, here - - and so many scandals over loans - - links, here - - that shouldn't have been made or that went sour or that had been goosed along for political reasons that the Legislature stopped for one budget cycle WEDC's ability to make new loans, and also boosted Walker off the board.
Then his presidential campaign crashed and burned.
But the 250,000 new jobs pledge still hung out there, unmet,
So along came the Foxconn opportunity, and Walker ran after it with our money to save, in one fell swoop, his governship and the jobs' promise, too.
Swoop, swamped.
Walker lost the election two weeks ago in a campaign dragged down by the obviously hideous terms of the WEDC-linked Foxconn-deal in a campaign in which four of his former Cabinet secretaries, including am ex-WEDC CEO, and two-other development-related agencies, said Walker was unfit to lead.
And while we're all awaiting the Robin Vos-Scott Fitzgerald 11th-hour Make WEDC and Walker's Counterfeit Legacy Permanent Bill, absorb the news that Foxconn, having already reduced the size of the factory it said it would build in Mt. Pleasant, is planning "deep cuts" across its business.
By the way, "deep cuts" could also be how to describe Foxconn's impact on Mt. Pleasant home and farm sites, along with state alending opportunities for the next 28 years.
You know what they say, 'Con me me once, shame on your. Con me continually, again, you're fired.'
Let's remember how the WEDC came about and that it's bottom line was more about Walker's political future - - at least that was the plan - - rather than business lending, which proved to be, shall we say, problematic.
Walker spent much of his 2010 run for Governor and post-election prance quintupling down on his 250,000 new jobs pledge.
It was big and bold. It was a floor not a ceiling. It would be the bright trail on the Wisconsin business rocket ship. It was going to be tattooed on the foreheads of his incoming cabinet. Sometimes he even threw in that he'd create 10,000 new businesses - - and even more!! - - but that riff turned sour after the Journal Sentinel caught him counting in non-profits, sports teams, fund-raising groups and one-person LLC's.
So Walker got the legislature to create the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation, throwing away the Wisconsin Department of Commerce, recasting the Department of Natural Resources as a "chamber of commerce mentality" one-stop shop for rubber-stamped easy permits and make-believe pollution enforcement, and awed corporate Wisconsin CEO's with a private-sector rich WEDC board that had none less than Walker himself as WEDC chairman.
Why would Walker take the twin risks of a) putting a specific, memorable number on the jobs promised, and b) giving himself another job with actual power that meant specific results would be expected, too?
Because he knew he was going to run for President, and wouldn't this grad plan nearing fruit look great - - perhaps Reaganesque - - in ads and talking-point laden campaign appearances before the tycoons who would fund it!
But the truth was that Walker had no experience in either the private sector or in using government to stimulate the economy.
As Milwaukee County executive, he sat on valuable county-iwned real estate downtown ripe for development.
He tried to turn over the office that managed it to his long-time gofer Tim Russell who eventually went to prison for stealing money from a Veterans Fund Walker kept assigned to the County Executive's office even though County ethics officials had urged it be transferred. Details, here.
And during a debate with Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett in the 2010 election, Walker could not name a single job he had created in low-income Milwaukee.
I wrote it up at the time:
Twice, Barrett asked Walker to name a single job he'd created in the central city of Milwaukee, and twice Walker had no response.Because Walker never had any real interest in jobs - - if he had, then why post a no-content phony economic development plan made to look really substantive with big with really big type, and turn down the Amtrak funding and other stimulus money - - except one job - - his.
It's an understatement to say that WEDC got off to a rocky start artificially kept afloat with propagandized boosts.
There were searing audits - - one, here - - and so many scandals over loans - - links, here - - that shouldn't have been made or that went sour or that had been goosed along for political reasons that the Legislature stopped for one budget cycle WEDC's ability to make new loans, and also boosted Walker off the board.
Then his presidential campaign crashed and burned.
But the 250,000 new jobs pledge still hung out there, unmet,
So along came the Foxconn opportunity, and Walker ran after it with our money to save, in one fell swoop, his governship and the jobs' promise, too.
Swoop, swamped.
Walker lost the election two weeks ago in a campaign dragged down by the obviously hideous terms of the WEDC-linked Foxconn-deal in a campaign in which four of his former Cabinet secretaries, including am ex-WEDC CEO, and two-other development-related agencies, said Walker was unfit to lead.
And while we're all awaiting the Robin Vos-Scott Fitzgerald 11th-hour Make WEDC and Walker's Counterfeit Legacy Permanent Bill, absorb the news that Foxconn, having already reduced the size of the factory it said it would build in Mt. Pleasant, is planning "deep cuts" across its business.
By the way, "deep cuts" could also be how to describe Foxconn's impact on Mt. Pleasant home and farm sites, along with state alending opportunities for the next 28 years.
You know what they say, 'Con me me once, shame on your. Con me continually, again, you're fired.'
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