Accompanied by an almost $4.8 billion subsidy package as estimated by Good Jobs First (follow the link to the spreadsheet), the project was heavily criticized even before it was announced in 2017 (my take here and here). The massive subsidy helped normalize the idea of multi-billion investment incentives and gave Amazon a handy benchmark for its own effort to break the bank.
As I analyzed a year and a half ago, it didn’t make sense to manufacture electronics in the United States when everything was cheaper in China, unless you were worried about access to the U.S. market. The illegitimate Trump regime had already created an unpredictable and protectionist trade climate, and this was long before the trade war with China really took off. If Foxconn felt it had to locate in the United States, the country was in a strong bargaining position, but by playing the states off against each other, it was still possible for a foreign company to score huge subsidies.
What happens next? As noted, Foxconn still says it will build a huge facility and hire 13,000 workers. But in 2018, it failed to meet its job creation target and forfeited what would have been a $9.5 million subsidy. I predict we will see more such failures from Foxconn until it finally pulls the plug. Indeed, on January 31, Good Jobs First called for the immediate cancellation of the deal, with the company financially responsible for expenses made by the state and by Racine County in connection with the project. This would be a fair resolution of the situation, appropriately leaving egg on the faces of the deal’s promoters, the recently defeated Governor Scott Walker and the head of the illegitimate Trump regime.
As you see, I have managed to steer clear of the obvious puns. Instead, I invite you to insert your joke here.
Cross-posted at Middle Class Political Economist
Foxconn and the Republican party are tight.
When this was announced my first thought was: where are they going to 13000 peasants from the hinterlands to fill these low-paying assembly jobs?
I mean, 5000 laid off GM factory workers are not going to move from Ohio to Wisconsin to take jobs paying $7.26/hr.
But, now I know the answer. Guatemala. Yes, The Dumpster® is getting Hon Hai Precision Industry to secretly fund the caravans.
They just announced that they will build flat screens in WI after all, after a phone call from Trump. No word on whether financial incentives were discussed.
What a gyp! I was looking forward to some bad puns..
Well, they said they would build flat screens after all after Trump and the CEO had a chat. Why am I reminded of Indiana and (was it) Carrier? They changed their minds too after Trump persuaded them to do so and then changed them again when they thought enough time had gone by to dull the impact. Wisconsin is screwed and not just by the winter weather.
Yes even the latest announcement that they will build something there, is just a smoke screen to please Trump and get the press off their backs for a day, after which it will all be forgotten… I haven’t seen more stories for example about the Carrierconn deal.
I haven’t seen a reliable accounting of what actual $ amount WI will be giving Foxconn, but we can rest assured Foxconn execs will just be milking out whatever cash benefits they can get. They are not a company known for giving squat about their employees.
Karl:
Welcome to Angry Bear. Fiest time comments always go to moderation to weed out spammers and advertising.
They aren’t building flat screens. They never said that.
Bert:
Do you “really” want to play that damn game again???
Yeah, Bert, they did say that. They’re lying of course.
Seems that it’s known all over the world that Republicans are ignorant fools to be taken advantage of (starting with our fool-in-chief).
As a former resident of Wisconsin, I can assure you that Foxconn is the least of the damage that Scott Walker and his gerrymandered GOP legislative super majority have done to the state of Wisconsin–and of course Wisconsin was home to Paul Ryan and is still home to dumb as a sack of rocks Ron Johnson. It is part of the larger problem–exemplified by Amazon’s second headquarters extortion–that the states compete for employers with tax giveaways and “right to work” union busting rather than skilled workers and modern infrastructure–ie a race to the bottom. My experience in Wisconsin was that Walker and the GOP wanted to transform Wisconsin into Mississippi only colder. Given our federal system there is only so much the federal government can constitutionally do, but certainly it could levy another 5 % tax on corporate income, but then give the corporations a credit rather than a deduction for taxes paid to the state up to 5%. That should reduce the attractiveness of state tax breaks. And could not Congress prohibit right to work laws and other anti union state legislation? Of course there is no political will for such legislation these days, but we really need to stop this race to the bottom between the states if we are ever going to Make America Great Again IMHO. I doubt we will hear any presidential candidate, progressive, liberal or otherwise discuss these issues. The closest they will come is discussing increasing the national minimum wage and redistribution of income, both of which are laudable but do not get at the underlying problem that screwing citizens to benefit the wealthy is a feature, not a bug of GOP controlled states.