This being the day of the solar eclipse …
… and general stupidity of opinions …
… here are two that — warning! — could reduce your IQ by reading them.
The Daily Caller read The Atlantic so you didn’t have to:
The Atlantic, a once-great magazine, has determined that the total eclipse of the sun due to occur on Monday will fail to affect enough black people.
The Atlantic’s very lengthy essay on the failure of the eclipse to occur where a sufficient number of black people reside is entitled “American Blackout.” It clocks in at a remarkable 4,544 words and does not appear to be satire.
Concerning “the Great American Eclipse,” Brooklyn Law School professor Alice Ristroph writes in the rapidly deteriorating magazine, “there live almost no black people” “along most of its path.”
The Atlantic’s longwinded law professor assures readers that “implicit bias of the solar system” is “presumably” not the cause of eclipse’s failure to affect enough black people.
“Still, an eclipse chaser is always tempted to believe that the skies are relaying a message.”
Oregon, where the eclipse will first appear in the continental United States, “is almost entirely white.” “There are very few black Oregonians, and this is not an accident.” It’s totally on purpose in 2017, The Atlantic claims, because the Pacific Northwest state had a “racial exclusion” clause in its original 1857 constitution.
The Atlantic notes that the eclipse will then move toward Wyoming and Idaho, which also have very low populations of black people. …
After an extensive discourse criticizing the U.S. Census, The Atlantic tells readers that the eclipse will travel through Nebraska, Kansas, Iowa and Missouri. In this section of its essay, The Atlantic manages to drop the names of Bruce Springsteen, Jesse James, Eminem, Chelsea Manning, Michael Brown and Howard Zinn (a shallow socialist writer panned even by most serious socialists).
“There are too many damn facts,” The Atlantic also complains.
After considerable whining about the Electoral College and the way Congress is organized, The Atlantic moves on to southern Illinois, Kentucky and Tennessee. There’s substantial discussion of the Ku Klux Klan in this section — and, of course, slavery. …
Here, The Atlantic criticizes Abraham Lincoln for being too cautious with the Emancipation Proclamation.
Next, The Atlantic traces the path of the eclipse to “overwhelmingly white rural areas” in the Deep South. There’s much discussion of the Civil War and much talk about “the glib view” America’s commoners have concerning Civil War history. Dylann Roof, who murdered nine people in the name of white supremacy, rates a mention.
In its final paragraph, The Atlantic concludes that the United States is “still segregated” and has “debts that no honest man can pay.” Cryptically, the magazine suggests, “the strange path of the eclipse suggests a need for reorganization” of the entire American political system.
The Atlantic classifies its article about the path of the eclipse in the category of “science” even though nothing remotely approaching science appears in any of the 4,544 words.
Interestingly, in trying to read this, the piece failed to load on two different browsers, as if The Atlantic is blocking people from reading this idiocy.
Next, GQ, even though I’ve warned you before you should never read GQ for anything but fashion advice (bad though it sometimes is):
A weekend that exposed the seams and rot of American life in so many other ways revealed this, too: That the work of white supremacy is no longer performed by cloak-and-dagger vigilantes. It’s done in broad daylight. And it’s done by people (mostly young, white men) wearing the most all-American clothes they can imagine: polos and khakis. The uniform of white hate is now average, mundane, the stuff of everyday American life. It is haunting. …
George Mitchell writes about this memorial you will no longer find in Forest Hill Cemetery in Madison:
Surely it’s time for Madison to cease honoring slaveowners.
That thought comes to mind on reading in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel that Madison Mayor Paul Soglin has ordered the removal of a memorial to confederate soldiers at a city-owned cemetery.
As the mayor boldly stated, “There should be no place in our country for bigotry, hatred, or violence against those who seek to unite our communities and our country.” And, in case anyone would be foolish to think otherwise, he added, ”There is no disrespect to the dead with the removal of the plaque and stone.”
Moving right along, when will East and West Washington Avenue be renamed? And then there’s Thomas Jefferson Middle School on the city’s west side.
As well as Monroe Street, Jackson Street (probably named for Andrew and not Jesse), Van Buren Street, Harrison Street (assuming it was named for William Henry and not Benjamin), Tyler Circle, Taylor Street, Johnson Street (whether named for Andrew or Lyndon) and Grant Street.
As historian Stephen Ambrose has written, “Jefferson owned slaves. He did not believe that all were created equal. He was a racist, incapable of rising above the thought of his time and place, and willing to profit from slave labor.” Washington, too, was a slaveholder (he eventually freed them).
More broadly, the nation’s founding fathers simply looked the other way when it came to incorporating women’s rights into the original Constitution. How can there be any “place in our country” where they are honored?
Soglin’s posturing, of course, is nothing but a self-absorbed grasp for attention. It’s the kind of virtue-signaling that increasingly has public figures groveling to demonstrate their sanctity. For the likes of Soglin, the Charlottesville story won’t be fully told until they declare, “Look. Over here. At me.”
Below is the wording of the hateful, bigoted, racist memorial that Soglin has ordered removed. And not a minute too soon.
The valiant Confederate soldiers who lie buried here were members of the 1st Alabama Inf. Reg., Confederate States of America. They were captured in the spring of 1862 in the Civil War Battle of Island No. 10 in the Mississippi River south of Cairo, Illinois. Their task was to stop traffic carrying men and supplies to Northern forces further south.
After weeks of fighting under extremely difficult conditions, they were forced to surrender. Constant fire from river gunboats and land forces made their position untenable. After surrender, they were moved to Camp Randall and when they arrived many were suffering from wounds, malnutrition and various diseases.
Within a few weeks 140 graves were filled, the last resting places for these unsung heroes, far from their homes in Alabama, Tennessee, Mississippi, Louisiana and Arkansas.
Here, also, is the grave of Alice Whiting Waterman, a gracious Southern lady who devoted more than 30 years of her life caring for the graves of “her boys.”
The history of racism in Soglin’s Democratic Party is, as someone puts it, an inconvenient truth. Jackson was a particularly virulent racist. So was Woodrow Wilson (for whom downtown Madison’s Wilson Street was named).Post-Civil War Jim Crow laws were enacted by Democrats, not Republicans. Franklin Roosevelt was so farsighted on racial issues that he interned thousands of Japanese–Americans during World War II just because they were easier to determine than Americans of German or Italian descent. Harry Truman desegregated the military, yet referred to blacks as, well, that N word. Lyndon Johnson famously said upon passage of the Civil Rights Act that “I’ll have those [there’s that word again] voting Democratic for 200 years.” And that list doesn’t include various liberal heroes from the Progressive Era such as Margaret Sanger, who believed in birth control to purify the white race.
This quote is from the friend of a Facebook Friend:
For all the people of African descent, are we not learning anything from the past. All of our history pre slavery was wiped out, censored, or beat out of our Ancestors. The good, the bad, and the ugly was denied us. Knowing how that has made us feel, or how it has shaped us, why would we want to do that now? I don’t want to memorialize racist historical people, but I certainly don’t want to have people not know they existed. There is a compromise. We should not have these statues memorized in a positive way on taxpayer buildings on the outside, but having them in museums as my sister Raydene suggested in another post. I want my kids, grandkids, their kids, and everyone to know ALL history good, bad, and ugly. EVERY country has parts that they are not proud of, that makes us all human. The klan, nazis, slavery, blm, and all hate groups are our blemish in history. Not something to be forgotten, but something to not be repeated. Calling the events of this past week, a alt-right thing, is EXACTLY why we can’t erase history. The orchestrators of these events want you to believe their history not true history. LEARN the truth people. Pick up a book, not a blog or meme.
Even more ironic is Soglin’s calling the Civil War “an act of insurrection and treason.” Some might say that protesting a war in which your country’s soldiers are fighting and dying is also an act of treason, but you know that dissent is patriotic only when Republicans are in charge in Washington.
My counterpart on Wisconsin Public Radio Friday morning equated slavery to Nazi Germany and noted there are no statues of Adolf Hitler in Germany. (That is because they are illegal in Germany, which unlike this country has never had a Bill of Rights.) It seems to me that American slavery, bad as it was, lacked the widespread genocide that Nazi Germany accomplished, if that’s what you want to call it, over just 12 years in power. This country also ended slavery on its own, instead of having the Nazis forcibly removed from power by defeating Germany in World War II.
The final point is that calling someone racist does not automatically make them racist. Indiscriminate baseless accusations of racism are why Donald Trump is president.
We begin with two forlorn non-music anniversaries. Today in 1897, Oldsmobile began operation, eventually to become a division of General Motors Corp. … but not anymore.
Today in 1965, the Rolling Stones released the song that would become their first number one hit, and yet Mick Jagger still claimed …
Today in 1967, the New York Times reported on a method of reducing the noise recording devices make during recording. The inventor, Ray Dolby, had pioneered the process for studio recordings, but the Times story mentioned its potential for home use.
Ray Dolby, by the way, is no known relation to the other Dolby …
Today in 1987, Lindsey Buckingham refused to go out on tour with Fleetwood Mac for its “Tango in the Night” album, perhaps thinking that the road would make him …
The band probably told him …
… but look who came back a few years later:
How much money would you have paid for tickets for this concert at the Cow Palace in San Francisco today in 1964:
Evaluating the violence in Charlottesville and the reaction to it from public officials and commentators requires basic levels of reason and decency. To botch it reveals some terribly unflattering trait: It could be related to political or partisan obsession, ego, honest-to-goodness insensitivity, vacuity, or some other deficiency of the heart or mind. It should be easy for the people who occupy public office and the media, be it professional media or social media, to get this right. And yet.
White nationalists are bad. Neo-Nazis are worse. The ones moved to violence are worse still. If you are curious about flirting with their worldview, a piece of advice: Don’t do that. If you are not a neo-Nazi, or a white supremacist of any kind, but want to march with them for the common cause of preserving a Confederate monument, don’t do that, either. If you’re stomping around with people chanting “Jews will not replace us” and don’t want to be associated with Nazism or white nationalism, step out of formation. Better yet, don’t show up in the first place. There is no ambiguity here. And yet.
President Trump says “you had many people in that group other than neo-Nazis and white nationalists,” including “very fine people.” And “what about the ‘alt-left’ that … came charging with clubs in their hands, swinging clubs?” he asks.
Well, the “alt-left”—specifically individuals associated with antifa—aren’t necessarily swell. As Peter Beinart writes in the Atlantic, “for all of antifa’s supposed anti-authoritarianism, there’s something fundamentally authoritarian about its claim that its activists … can decide whose views are too odious to be publicly expressed.” There have been many occasions on which to condemn the movement—it “has time and again plunged volatile situations into violence,” observes Ben Shapiro, “from Sacramento to Berkeley.” Don’t forget Portland, either. But there’s no reason to mention antifa in the context of white supremacists marching on Charlottesville. White supremacists were the instigators there. Their most extreme members, neo-Nazis, are the worst subgroup on both sides by an inestimable degree. There is no reason to compare or equivocate these people and Marxist militants. It’s okay to censure the “alt-left,” especially when its activists turn violent, in a different and proper context. And it’s okay for critics of the president to just leave it at that. And yet.
“Watching ‘Saving Private Ryan,’ a movie about a group of very aggressive alt-left protesters invading a beach without a permit,” tweets Atlantic editor in chief Jeffrey Goldberg. That one got about 10,000 retweets. This one will fly past 40,000:
What is cute about this? We have wondered what the grandparents of neo-Nazis who may have fought in World War II would think of their grandkids. What would World War II veterans think of being compared to a group that features disorderly anarchists? Those men who landed on Normandy fought in actual muck. There’s no excuse to drag them into the muck of our personal politics.
The same goes for the nation’s shameful history of race relations and its generational efforts to improve them. The United States has evolved into a pluralistic society. You can imagine how Americans whose ancestors did not live in such times would be disturbed by the images captured and chants shouted in Charlottesville. And how those same people would be troubled when the president’s response to the events earned praise from men like Richard Spencer and David Duke. Two of those people, a black Republican named Gianno Caldwell and a black Democrat named Wendy Osefo, teared up on Fox and Friends Wednesday morning while discussing the last five days. Said Caldwell, the Republican, “Last night I couldn’t sleep at all because President Trump, our president, literally betrayed the conscience of our country, the very moral fabric in which we have made progress when it comes to race relations in America.” It’s tough criticism. But given the circumstances, it at least deserves respect. It ought to be received openly. And yet.
Here are several of the responses to a tweet from Mediaite linking to the video: “Lol, pathetic. I think they need their binkie.” … “ah a snowflake moment” … “Such Drama! Need an Emmy for that.” … “This was absurd! I left the room.” … “Were they upset when then President Obama said nothing to condemn BLM over the Dallas police officers who were killed?” … “Spare me the alligator tears.” … “Everyone needed to use a barf bag while watching this male guest while he insulted @realDonaldTrump. Did he take acting lessons from #Obama?” … “Think they’ve been holding back those tears since January 20thwhen they lost their beloved Obama.” … “oh please, where do they get these people?” … “THEY are sad because he OUTED THEM as PART OF ANTIFA!” … a .gif of Judge Judy rolling her eyes … and a .gif of Jimmy Fallon with the caption “ABOUT TO UGLY CRY.”
One of the most depressing lessons of the last two years is that a significant chunk of Americans has zero desire to understand each other. Sometimes this is rooted in ignorance. Sometimes it is rooted in a lack of common sense. And sometimes it is rooted in a lack of empathy. It is not a symptom of the right or of the left. It is not a symptom of a political movement at all. It is a symptom of a people terrified of being challenged, of not having all the answers to all of society’s ills, of the possibility of being wrong, of accepting vulnerability, of appearing weak. Sometimes the strong thing to do is to say the right thing. Sometimes it’s to say nothing at all. And sometimes it’s simply to be a good neighbor. No one is ever going to find that in a political pamphlet. They’ll only find it within themselves.
Last year around this time (and the year before that), I was arguing with some of my fellow conservatives about the insanity of finding any common cause whatsoever with the so-called alt-right. The issue wasn’t that every avowed nationalist who claimed membership in the alt-right was a Nazi or Klansman. It was that the alt-right was open to Nazis and Klansmen. And why wouldn’t these newly minted white supremacists welcome such pioneering organizations to their cause?
Right-wing cynics, hucksters, and opportunists deliberately blurred these distinctions in the name of a right-wing popular front. Steve Bannon, now a White House consigliere, is by most accounts not a bigot in his personal dealings. But when he ran Breitbart, he had no problem making it a “platform” for the alt-right. Internet entertainer Milo Yiannopoulos was a Breitbart star for his defenses of the alt-right and its supposedly hilarious Holocaust jokes. He was let go (and disinvited from the Conservative Political Action Conference) only when it was revealed he was equally broad-minded about some expressions of pedophilia as he was about some expressions of Nazism.
Win what? Well, that varied. At first it was the war on the “establishment,” including Fox News. Then one alleged civil war on the right or another. And, ultimately, the fight to get Donald Trump the nomination and the presidency.
As the primaries wound down, the imperative for unity intensified. Why look under rocks when you can use them as stepping stones to victory? Besides, Trump was making it as clear as possible that he welcomed support and praise from any quarter.
Whatever its status at the White House, the alt-right thinks it will replace the traditional Right. It won’t, for the simple reason that the vast, overwhelming majority of conservatives are patriotic and decent, just like Americans generally. They don’t want anything to do with people who want to overthrow the Constitution and set up racial Bantustans.
No, the real threat to traditional conservatism is the mindset that made it possible to form even a theoretical alliance with the alt-right in the first place: the idea that winning and fighting are self-justifying.
Over the last decade, many on the right have convinced themselves that the real problem with conservatism is a lack of will. They admiringly quote left-wing activist Saul Alinsky and claim that “we” have to be like “them” by doing whatever is necessary to “win.”
During the campaign, when Trump attacked the ethnicity of an American judge or the parents of a fallen Muslim U.S. soldier, the response from his defenders on the right was usually, “At least he fights!”
Such amorality was warranted, many explained, because if Clinton had won, America would be “over.” National-security official Michael Anton, then writing from the safety of anonymity, dubbed it a “Flight 93 election” and argued that conservatives must do anything for victory or accept certain death. In an interview with New York magazine, Anton went further. “If we must have Caesar,” he said, “who do you want him to be? One of theirs? Or one of yours (ours)?”
The election is over. Yet that spirit not only endures, it has intensified. Trump’s conservative critics, or “apostates” as Conrad Black calls us, face the same ultimatum. “The choice, for sane conservatives,” Black writes, “is Trump or national disaster.” Black is hardly alone in making this or similar cases. The upshot of them all is that the test for “sane” (or real or good or true) conservatives is loyalty to the president, not to any coherent body of ideas or ideals. Even truth takes a back seat.
I’d point out that such thinking could invite the worst and most opportunistic creatures to infiltrate the movement. Except they already have.
How can two songs be the number one song in the country today in 1956? Do a Google search for the words “B side”:
(Those songs, by the way, were the first Elvis recorded with his fantastic backup singers, the Jordanaires.)
Today in 1962, the Beatles made their debut with their new drummer, Ringo Starr, following a two-hour rehearsal.
Because I am, as Charlie Sykes once called me, a “media ho,” I will be on the radio three times over the next two days.
I will start by being on Wisconsin Public Radio’s Ideas Network’s Joy Cardin Week in Review segment Friday at 8 a.m. for one of the last times. (Cardin announced earlier this week she’s retiring; her last show will be Sept. 29.)
As I’ve said for almost a decade, Joy Cardin and all the other Ideas Network programming can be heard on WLBL (930 AM) in Auburndale, WHID (88.1 FM) in Green Bay, WHWC (88.3 FM) in Menomonie, WRFW (88.7 FM) in River Falls, WEPS (88.9 FM) in Elgin, Ill., WHAA (89.1 FM) in Adams, WHBM (90.3 FM) in Park Falls, WHLA (90.3 FM) in La Crosse, WRST (90.3 FM) in Oshkosh, WHAD (90.7 FM) in Delafield, W215AQ (90.9 FM) in Middleton, KUWS (91.3 FM) in Superior, WHHI (91.3 FM) in Highland, WSHS (91.7 FM) in Sheboygan, WHDI (91.9 FM) in Sister Bay, WLBL (91.9 FM) in Wausau, W275AF (102.9 FM) in Ashland, W300BM (107.9 FM) in Madison, and of course online at www.wpr.org.
My opponent will be Scot Ross of One Wisconsin Now.
Since as you know I always seem to appear around holidays, this appearance may be in commemoration of Birth Control Pills Day, Helium Discovery Day, National Bad Poetry Day, National Fajita Day, National Ice Cream Pie Day, National Soft Ice Cream Day, or perhaps National Men’s Grooming Day.
Less than 12 hours later I will be announcing my first high school football game of the season — Benton/Scales Mound, the nation’s first two-state co-op team, against Potosi/Cassville, a brand new co-op team, at superhits106.com. That will be followed less than 18 hours later by the first game in the Six Rivers Jamboree, Belmont and North Crawford from UW–Platteville, on ESPN Radio AM 1590 WPVL.
With a vote on the Foxconn incentive package reportedly set to take place today, the Wisconsin Policy Research Institute looks at the pros and cons of what is likely to be approved today:
Much of the discussion thus far about Foxconn Technology Group bringing an LCD screen manufacturing plant to southeastern Wisconsin has focused on the deal itself and the money that could flow out of — and eventually into — our state Capitol.
That’s important, and we synopsize the key numbers below. But the sheer size and scope of the deal raises unprecedented questions about everything from job creation and impacts on economic growth in the decades ahead to how free markets and economies work best, most fairly and efficiently, for everyone in the long term.
There are smart people coming down on both sides of this one, and the divergence of opinion stems at least partly from how far down the road (no, not just I-94, though that’s a question as well) one thinks he or she can clearly see.
As a key analysis of the deal by the nonpartisan Legislative Fiscal Bureau states, “Technological advances and changes in Foxconn’s market share, operating procedures or product mix could significantly affect employment and wages at the proposed facility over time.”
The impending legislative decision — the Assembly is expected to vote Thursday, but no vote has yet been scheduled in the Senate — will require peripheral vision as well, and that’s always the blurriest. Proponents call the deal “transformational.” Opponents worry about the precedent it would set and all the other roads and businesses that exist — or might want to — in other parts of our unique state.
To help shed light on a complex deliberation, we’ve asked three of the smartest economists in Wisconsin (or with Wisconsin roots) to share their thoughts prior to action in Madison. Their initial takes — one skeptical, one largely sanguine and one against — are summarized below, along with an analysis of the prospects for Taiwan-based Foxconn and LCD technology.
Why Wisconsinites should be skeptical by Andrew Hanson
Taxpayers should ask, “Is this a good deal for us?” Among the reasons why it’s not: The billions of state dollars could be used for economic development with a better track record, the economic-multiplier estimate for the Foxconn plant is extremely generous and the deal sets an ill-advised precedent for other large employers in Wisconsin.Fiscal costs certain, but a potential for large gains by Noah Williams
The high upfront costs must be weighed against the potential that Foxconn may help Wisconsin develop as a hub of high-tech manufacturing, which could generate gains far beyond the direct jobs created.There are better ways to create jobs and growth by Ike Brannon
Governments aren’t very good at figuring out which businesses are likely to grow and which are likely to fail. What governments can do is create an environment that’s conducive to small and medium-sized businesses to invest, grow and expand.What will the future of LCDs mean for Wisconsin? by Robert S. Anthony
Will technology inside the plant be obsolete the day it opens? While Foxconn has shown itself to be a smart and agile company, its future here depends on how it reacts to the ever-evolving display industry.Finally, we synopsize key points being made by Tim Sheehy, president of the Metropolitan Milwaukee Association of Commerce and, in the interest of full disclosure, a Wisconsin Policy Research Institute Board member.
Sheehy concedes that in general there is risk in granting individual corporate economic incentive packages in a market-based economy. But he argues that for most every state, incentives are a necessary tool in the competition for jobs and capital investment and asks, “What is Wisconsin supposed to do, disarm?”
The Legislative Fiscal Bureau memo, worth reading in its entirety, includes a wide variety of points:
• Foxconn agrees to build a $10 billion facility over six years and create up to 13,000 jobs, with a reported average salary of $53,875.
• The state will provide up to $3 billion through two types of tax credits (which can mean cash payments) and a construction sales tax exemption. Foxconn could be eligible for the maximum if employment reaches 13,000 positions by 2021 and remains at that level.
• A Foxconn payroll tax credit over 15 years would relate to any employee with wages of at least $30,000 and up to $100,000. It could amount to $1.5 billion.
• A Foxconn capital expenditures credit would be paid over seven years and could amount to $1.35 billion.
• It is believed that Foxconn would be able to claim the 7.5 percent manufacturing and agriculture credit.
• The bill would create a sales and use tax exemption. Based on estimated capital expenditures of $10 billion, Foxconn and its contractors would save $139 million. “However, since it is highly unlikely that Foxconn would locate in the state without the incentives provided under the bill, this amount should not be viewed as a state revenue loss,” notes the LFB analysis.
• The state could make up to $10 million in grants to local governments for development costs related to infrastructure and public safety.
• The bill would authorize $252 million in bonds for use in the I-94 North-South corridor project. If fully issued, estimated general fund-supported debt service payments on the bonds would be $408 million.
To estimate how long it will take for state government to recoup its investment, the LFB made a variety of assumptions. Much of the following is taken directly from the LFB analysis:
• Average annual employment of approximately 10,200 construction workers and equipment suppliers earning an average total compensation of approximately $59,600 (including benefits) per year during the four-year construction period.
• Nearly 6,000 indirect and induced jobs created during the construction period, with an average total compensation of $48,900.
• Indirect and induced construction-period jobs generating increased state tax revenues equal to approximately 6.3 percent of the additional gross wages.
• Indirect and induced jobs associated with the project totaling 22,000 beginning in 2021. Average annual wages for these individuals are estimated at approximately $51,000. Total ongoing wages are estimated at $1.12 billion annually, and related state taxes are estimated at $71 million per year. Smaller impacts are estimated in calendar years 2017 through 2020 as the project ramps up. (A new report paid for by the Wisconsin Economic Development Corp. adjusted job-creation estimates outside the plant, with fewer long-term jobs expected but more short-term jobs expected during construction.)
The LFB analysis says: “Based on these figures, DOA projects that the cost of the refundable state tax credits under the bill will exceed the potential increased tax revenues until fiscal year 2032-’33. As of the end of that year, the cumulative net cost of the incentive package is estimated at $1.04 billion. Beginning in 2033-’34, payments to the company would cease and increased state tax collections are estimated at $115 million per year.
“DOA estimates that the project’s break-even point would occur during the 2042-’43 fiscal year.”
“It should be noted,” according to the LFB, “that the analysis focuses only on the impacts of the Foxconn project on the state treasury, but does not account for other benefits to the state’s economy and residents.” These include Foxconn’s $10 billion investment, employment opportunities for the state’s workforce and adding a new sector to Wisconsin’s manufacturing economy.
MMAC’s perspective
The Metropolitan Milwaukee Association of Commerce points to this bigger picture. MMAC says tax revenue is only one long-term measure — wages and benefits paid to Wisconsin workers during construction and during operation of the complex should also be considered.
• During construction: Based on a $10 billion capital investment, the project would create over 10,200 new jobs for prime and sub-contractors and equipment suppliers; over 1,700 jobs for suppliers and another 4,200 jobs that would result from new household expenditures — a total of over 16,200 jobs with $3.6 billion in labor income over the four-year construction period, according to an EY Quantitative Economics and Statistics analysis, paid for by Foxconn.
• During operation: If Foxconn employment reaches 13,000, the EY analysis projects over 11,400 jobs among suppliers. The household spending from those direct and indirect jobs would produce another 10,800 jobs. The total ongoing job impact could reach over 35,200 and total annual labor income of $2 billion, under those assumptions.
Ultimately, according to MMAC, a $10 billion Foxconn investment with 13,000 jobs could have a cumulative impact of $78 billion to Wisconsin’s gross domestic product over 15 years.
WPRI has an underlying and guiding belief in the efficacy and promise of free markets and limited government that allows the private sector to flourish. We espouse sound public policy that ensures opportunity and enables prosperity. Our function today — and in the weeks ahead — is to provide the best information possible to legislators, who are being asked to make one of the most important and impactful decisions of their careers. We urge them to consider all potential benefits and ramifications before voting.
These are legitimate points. An excerpt from Brannon:
In my first year as a professor at the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh in the mid-1990s, I had a colleague who spent his summers consulting for a small tech firm with a couple hundred employees called Epic Systems. At the time, the state was vigorously giving subsidies to manufacturing companies to come to the state or not leave the state, while benignly ignoring companies like Epic.
Today, Verona-based Epic employs nearly 10,000 people, most of whom live and work in the state and most of whom have skilled, well-paying jobs that any state would kill to attract.
There are better ways to attract new jobs than to give billions of dollars to one large manufacturer. The state can do more to attract entrepreneurs.
A lower tax rate on businesses would be one way to do this. And doing more to encourage foreign-born students — who are much more likely to start businesses than U.S. born-students — to remain in Wisconsin would pay dividends in the long run, I believe.
Neither reform would produce immediate returns, but they would plant the seeds for the next Epic Systems and leave the state less dependent on the fortunes of one company or industry.
Brannon doesn’t point out that Epic is in Verona and not Madison, where it began, because Verona gave Epic tax incentives to move that Madison refused to give. Paul Soglin won’t mention that in his potential loss for governor.
Brannon is correct though naïve because he doesn’t mention how politics works. Encouraging foreign-born students to remain here misses the fact that the Trump administration is trying to slam the door on immigration. There is, sadly, no real support for severely reducing business taxes even in the supposedly pro-business GOP. When politicians feel they must make pledges of job creation to get and stay elected, well, that’s how we have the system we have today.
Illegitimate points are illustrated by Sen. Van Wangaard (R–Racine):
M.D. Kittle brings up an illegitimate issue brought up by opponents:
Opponents of Wisconsin’s potentially massive economic development deal with Foxconn Technology Group like to point to Pennsylvania’s tale of heartbreak at the hands of the Taiwanese tech giant.
That’s certainly how the Washington Post painted the picture earlier this year when Foxconn, in the first few weeks after President Trump’s inauguration, announced it plans to invest billions of dollars in the United States and create as many as 50,000 jobs.
In 2013, the post reported, Foxconn Chairman Terry Gou pledged to build a $30 million factory in Pennsylvania’s capital, Harrisburg, and hire 500 workers.
“But the factory was never built. The jobs never came,” the Post morbidly reported.
True. The deal didn’t go down.
But the story, and others like it, left out some very important details, according to a guy who has gotten to know Gou and Foxconn over the past several months: Gov. Scott Walker.
In a key way, Foxconn didn’t leave Pennsylvania; Pennsylvania left Foxconn, according to administration officials.
After Democrat Tom Wolf unseated Republican Gov. Tom Corbett in 2014, Foxconn saw the writing on the wall, Walker said.
“In the case of Pennsylvania, they changed leadership, they changed who the governor was,” Walker told MacIver News Service Tuesday on the Vicki McKenna Show, on NewsTalk 1130 WISN in Milwaukee.
“I jokingly, but only half jokingly, say, it’s probably a pretty good reason not to change who the governor is for the next few years,” Walker, who is expected to run in 2018 for a third term, added.
The Badger State’s proposed $3 billion incentives package would no doubt play a big part in sealing Foxconn’s plan to build a $10 billion high-tech manufacturing campus in southeast Wisconsin – a development project that could ultimately create 13,000 jobs at what would be Foxconn’s first North American manufacturing operation.
But Walker said Wisconsin offers Foxconn intangible benefits that other states cannot, chief among them, stability.
Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf, billed as “The most liberal Governor in America,” brought into office an agenda of big tax increases and stiffer government regulations on business.
“The idea that the new governor, with new terms, a new potential business climate, might come in, was something that was a grave concern for (Foxconn), and so they backed away,” Walker said.
Foxconn, too, slowed its investment in Brazil, as the South American nation reeled under corruption and the impeachment and removal of its president.
That point, too, is not noted in the Washington Post story, which all but accuses Foxconn of being a deadbeat business. Foxconn, according to the newspaper, “spoke of a $10 billion plan in 2011” in Brazil.
“In Brazil, Foxconn has an iPhone factory, but its investment has fallen far short of expectations,” the Post reported.
Gou has made it clear that Foxconn needs to be in the United States. The proposed southeast Wisconsin operation would make super-high-definition liquid crystal display panels to be used in various industries. The United States remains the largest consumer market in the world, and “Made in the U.S.A.” is critical to Foxconn’s growth prospects, the chairman told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel late last month.
Gou pointed to Wisconsin’s advantageous geographical location, its transportation and logistics strengths, and its vibrant university and technical college system. He said Wisconsin has the assets to again become a center of manufacturing.
“You have a good foundation,” he told the newspaper.
Walker said Foxconn wanted to be in the middle of the United States, near a major market like Chicago, “but not in the state of Illinois.”
“Rather, in a state like Wisconsin, where we balance budgets, we have a fully funded pension system, we have a rainy day fund that’s 165 times bigger than when we took office, we have a business climate that went from the bottom 10 to the top 10,” Walker said.
The Washington Post piece suggests Gou and Foxconn are nothing more than big corporate teases — that Pennsylvania isn’t the only state that has loved and lost a potential Foxconn development deal.
But, as Walker administration officials have pointed out in recent weeks, if Pennsylvania truly was broken-hearted about Foxconn’s departure, why was it so heavily courting the deal that Wisconsin appears to be on the brink of landing? Pennsylvania was noted as several states in the running for the Foxconn project.
What’s not been widely reported is the fact that Gou’s $10 million commitment to Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh for robotics research didn’t end after the Pennsylvania economic development deal fell apart.
“Foxconn said its $10 million donation … was ‘moving forward very successfully,’ with half of the funds having been spent four years later,” the Washington Post reported.
Walker blames politics for the half-truths about Foxconn in Pennsylvania and elsewhere.
“As we know with other issues, there are some people who are so bothered by the idea that we might have success here, particularly because they somehow think it might be beneficial to me or to some future campaign,” the Republican governor said.
“The bottom line is this is just good for Wisconsin.”
The most important point to be made is that none of what is in the Foxconn package is money the state would have were it not for Foxconn. There would be no infrastructure spending and no tax breaks if Foxconn wasn’t coming to this state. This is money that does not exist right now.
Steve Prestegard.com: The Presteblog 