State threw all its eggs in Foxconn basket

I can’t help but look at the Foxconn deal and wonder what might happen if Wisconsin took the $3 billion it plans to give the Taiwanese-based manufacturer to locate its sprawling plant here, and instead offered that money to entrepreneurs and startups.

The current deal feels like we’ve simply given up on homegrown innovation. It is, in many ways, putting all of our eggs in one basket — and a very expensive one at that. The Foxconn deal is poised to become the largest subsidy to a foreign company in U.S. history.

I understand why some folks are excited at the promise of new manufacturing jobs. Even before the Great Recession, that kind of work had been disappearing from the state, mostly the result of a changing economy and incentives for big companies to relocate overseas. Still, the hyper-focus on bringing back the glory days of the manufacturingbased economy has made us dangerously myopic and is leaving too many Wisconsinites behind.

While Gov. Scott Walker has been touting us as a “Top 10” state and a model for the nation, the recovery and growth numbers ignore that they apply almost exclusively to specific corners of Wisconsin. Dane County, with its bustling educational, governmental, tech, and health care sectors, along with the Fox Valley and certain cities in western Wisconsin, represent the lion’s share of the growth. And this was true even before the recession, which had run its course by June 2009.

In short, we were already seeing the formation of two Wisconsins before the most recent downturn decimated the middle class. The recovery has not been enough to bring us back to even. It certainly hasn’t done nearly enough to put us in a strong position to weather future turbulence.

Sadly, this is a story that extends nationwide: The recovery from the recession has been wildly uneven and far less equitable than past such recoveries. A large part of the problem stems from the consolidation of wealth into larger and larger corporations and monopolies and far fewer smaller, new businesses opening their doors. When those big companies suck up all the state and local funding and tax incentives, there’s precious little left for the little guys.

I fear that by throwing such an unprecedented amount of money at a single, foreign business, we’re not only upping the ante for any future deals but also eviscerating our ability to fund a more diverse — and healthier and more sustainable — array of small- to medium-sized businesses.

There’s wisdom in the idea of spreading your eggs between multiple, less expensive baskets. Say we take that $3 billion and create programs and incentives to boost Wisconsin’s lagging startup economy (ranked dead last in the nation for the past three years by the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation). We’d be investing in longer-term economic innovation and growth that benefits more people. We would be creating a wider array of jobs because people’s skills and interests are and should be diverse.

Instead, our leaders are throwing every egg we’ve got into one big sketchy basket with very few guarantees and a big downside. They’re preying on the real economic insecurity that exists and using it to line a few pockets. We have to be more creative, and more realistic, about job creation.