MADISON – Tomorrow, the Joint Committee on Finance is
scheduled to hold a public hearing in Southeast Wisconsin on Governor Walker’s
Foxconn legislation, Special Session Assembly Bill 1. This bill passed the State Assembly last
week, and authorizes up to $2.85 billion payments to Foxconn, a Taiwanese
electronics manufacturer, for building a manufacturing plant, creating jobs,
discounted electricity rates, exemptions from the sales and use tax, and an
exemption from significant environmental regulations.
Since the initial public hearing over two weeks ago, where
no Foxconn representatives testified, there have been significant new
disclosures about this proposal that further raise alarms:
· Under the
best case scenario, it would take 25 years for Wisconsinites to recoup the
billions of potential payments to Foxconn;
· An original
analysis by Baker Tilly, paid for by Governor Walker’s jobs creation agency and
not made available to the public, estimates that only 4,784 Wisconsin jobs will
be created in the manufacturing plant, as opposed to the unverified 13,000
employees Foxconn reports;
· That hourly
employees, consisting the vast percentage of potential employees, are expected
to work 20% overtime;
· Buried in
the bill is a provision that allows Foxconn to dump pollution in Wisconsin
streams.
“With each day that goes by, the more concerned and frankly,
outraged, I am over this “deal” being peddled by Governor Walker and
legislative Republicans. They are
committing nearly $3 billion in taxpayer cash to a foreign corporation based on
its rosy and unverified representations about job creation when they don’t even
have to hire Wisconsin workers.
“Summer is coming to an end and it’s time Governor Walker
takes off his rose-colored glasses and seriously scrutinizes Foxconn’s
representations that seem more fiction than fact. If JFC is doing a roadshow on this scheme,
they should travel to parts of the state outside of the southeast to hear from
Wisconsinites who will also be required to foot this bill with a staggering
price tag.
“Even the nonpartisan Politifact agreed that it is entirely
possible that Wisconsin could end up spending nearly $1 million per job that
Foxconn creates. That’s not economic
development. That’s not free market
economics. That’s extortion. Instead of dumping billions of Wisconsinites’
cash into the pockets of a billion dollar, multinational Taiwanese company, we
should be investing in our homegrown Wisconsin companies, our public school
system, and our local roads. That’s
something we all can get behind.”
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