Walker aides tout Foxconn to lawmakers

Plant would ‘change the economy,’ they assured

MADISON, Wis. - Gov. Scott Walker’s top aides offered legislators another round of assurances Tuesday that a Foxconn Technology Group plant in southeastern Wisconsin would transform the state’s economy but promised the company would lose out on state incentives if it doesn’t deliver.

Foxconn has proposed building a $10 billion facility to produce liquid-crystal display panels in Kenosha or Racine counties. The Taiwanese company has said the factory could employ up to 13,000 people. Walker has drawn up a bill that would hand the company $3 billion in incentives, including tax credits based on jobs created and capital investment, exemptions from environmental regulations and exemptions from state and local sale taxes on construction materials.

The Assembly approved the bill last week, but the Senate has been moving more cautiously. The Legislature’s Joint Finance Committee, made up of both representatives and senators, held a public hearing on the measure Tuesday in Sturtevant, near where the plant might locate.

No one from Foxconn attended. Committee Democrats peppered Department of Administration Secretary Scott Neitzel and Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation CEO Mark Hogan with questions about whether Foxconn will deliver on its job promises, whether the company will employ Wisconsin residents and the environmental exemptions’ effects on the landscape.

Neitzel called the plant a “once-in-acentury opportunity” for the state. He insisted that job tax credits will be tied to the number of jobs created. If the company creates only 3,000 jobs, the tax break would be smaller, he said.

Hogan added his agency is negotiating “clawback” provisions in a contract with Foxconn executing the legislation. Such provisions would require the company to repay at least some tax credits if it doesn’t build the plant or create jobs.

Neitzel acknowledged that the plant