Wisconsin still out of the loop on Foxconn plans

In business, plans sometimes change. Perhaps based on market conditions, or new opportunities. But with $4 billion on the line, those willing to hand out that money should sure be kept in the loop. Unfortunately, that isn’t happening with Wisconsin’s efforts to lure Foxconn to the state. The Taiwanese manufacturer of flat screens boasted of its efforts to build a $10 billion plant in southeast Wisconsin, and employ 13,000 people in Wisconsin when Governor Walker first announced the plan. It was going to build what it called a Gen 10 plant where it would build flat screens for big TV’s and liquid crystal displays. The company finally admitted it would be scaling back the size of the Wisconsin plant to what it called Gen 6, a smaller plant producing smaller screens, but remained committed to the 13,000 promised jobs. Some experts in the industry are now saying they doubt that even a smaller plant will be built in Wisconsin. They put the odds of any Foxconn plant in Wisconsin at less than 10 percent. Foxconn itself hasn’t announced its specific plans for Wisconsin, and that is the problem. Clearly, things have changed. But the company isn’t saying how it will respond to those changes. Wisconsin taxpayers deserve to know exactly what the latest plans are. With $4 billion on the line, that certainly is not too much to ask.