Wisconsin’s Foxconn deal “scandal waiting to happen”

Group argues why investments going to
Foxconn, not Wisconsin education, health care … 

Today is the first vote on the controversial incentive package for the Taiwanese electronics giant Foxconn moving to Wisconsin. 

A committee in Madison will consider a freshly revised bill that includes incentives to Foxconn for hiring Wisconsin workers.

The $3 billion price tag on the package, however, has people like Robert Kraig from Citizen Action of Wisconsin seething about what else that money could be spent on: health care, education, renewable energy. 

“We could make these investments now,” Kraig said. “We could have made them years ago. We only choose to make it when Foxconn comes and says, ‘This is a great deal. Take it or leave it or we’ll take it to another state.'”

Other changes to the bill that’s been put together in just two weeks includes $20 million for colleges and universities to create a Foxconn worker pipeline.

Today’s committee vote comes even as some an analysis shows taxpayers wouldn’t see a payback from the deal for at least 25 years.

Kraig is among those who doesn’t see much to crow about in the deal.

“This is a scandal ready to happen,” he said. “I would treat, with great suspicious, that the north woods, which is very economically depressed, or that southwest Wisconsin would benefit greatly even if all the things claimed for it were true.