State Hearing Set On Foxconn, Report Cites Economic Gains

The Legislature’s finance panel will hold a public hearing today (Tuesday) on the state’s three-billion-dollars of incentives for Foxconn. The Assembly approved the package of tax breaks and environmental law relaxations last week, and it’s now pending in the Senate. The finance hearing begins at eleven a-m at Gateway Technical College in Sturtevant, close to where Foxconn plans to build its ten-billion dollar L-C-D screen plant. If it creates the 13-thousand jobs Governor Scott Walker is touting, a U-W Madison economist says the plant would return almost four dollars for every one dollar in state subsidies. Noah Williams of the U-W Center for Research on the Wisconsin Economy released figures Monday showing that the plant could make what he called “broad gains for Wisconsin that go far beyond the direct job estimates and tax revenue costs which have dominated the recent discussion.”