Wisconsin pols keep getting away with over-promising and under-performing at public expense. And in plain sight.
* As Foxconn's p.r. and GOP assurances continue wobbling, we tend to forget that when the project was unveiled, the number of jobs projected was pegged at 3,000, as The New York Times reported on July 26, 2017:
I cited the number in 2013, when the plans and numbers had already morphed:
* Or take Miller (soon to be AmFam, or something) Park. Bruce Murphy has tracked the cost expansion from $250 million to more than $1 billion.
* Then there was that double-payment for some work on the $1.5 billion Zoo Interchange - - the same project that Walker, in campaign mode, declared completed - - when it wasn't:
* As Foxconn's p.r. and GOP assurances continue wobbling, we tend to forget that when the project was unveiled, the number of jobs projected was pegged at 3,000, as The New York Times reported on July 26, 2017:
Foxconn Says It Plans to Build Factory in Wisconsin, Adding 3,000 JobsBut Scott Walker led the jobs and descriptive inflation on Twitter, the same day, at 4:50 p.n.
Foxconn is bringing 13,000 high-tech jobs to Wisconsin -- the biggest jobs announcement in our state’s history!13,000 high-tech jobs? Said who?
And the next day, CNBC went out of its way to remind its audience that Foxconn had a history of backing out of deals, paying low, not living wages, and planned to replace tens of thousands of workers with robots:
* I remember when the estimated cost of a Lake Michigan water diversion project for the City of Waukesha that by court order had to be in place by June, 2018, was $78 million....Foxconn has a spotty track record of delivering on its promisesAnd this isn't the first time there has been a big gap between promises and performance in these here parts:
I cited the number in 2013, when the plans and numbers had already morphed:
Roaming around on The Google yesterday, I stumbled on something I wrote in 2009 about Waukesha's probable (and still pending Great Lakes water diversion plan):
Waukesha estimated Monday that its water pipe from Milwaukee, and return flow pipe to Wauwatosa, will cost $78 million.Put that up on your refrigerator and see [whether] that number grows.
Fast forward to last October:
The water pipeline project to and from Oak Creek will cost Waukesha $183 million to build, according to the Waukesha Water Utility.The last figure I saw reported was $282 million, and the estimated water delivery date is now pushed to 2012 or 2022.
* Or take Miller (soon to be AmFam, or something) Park. Bruce Murphy has tracked the cost expansion from $250 million to more than $1 billion.
* Then there was that double-payment for some work on the $1.5 billion Zoo Interchange - - the same project that Walker, in campaign mode, declared completed - - when it wasn't:
Scott Walker declares Zoo Interchange is done, even as years of work remain
In 2011, Walker promised to complete the entire Zoo Interchange project by 2019. He's meeting that deadline for the core of the project, but not its north leg.
That work now isn't expected to be done until 2023 at a cost of $232.6 million — 16 percent more than last year's estimate of $202.6 million, according to the Daily Reporter.
I know that big projects change. But I wonder if the planners and the pols and the financiers know they can play a gullibility or citizen fatigue card in Wisconsin and get away with murder.