Keeping jobs in the US by force

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And as everyone, including Trump, was sure to point out, this development was due solely to the bold leadership of the new president. "If I didn’t get elected, [Guo] definitely would not be spending $10 billion," Trump said at the White House event. But the Foxconn deal is not a triumph for Trumponomics. Rather, it’s just the latest instance of Trump and the Republican Party’s rigged approach to economic development: using taxpayer-funded subsidies to prop up boondoggles that enrich corporations, squeeze state and municipal budgets, and generally fail to generate long-term, good-paying jobs.

In the preliminary deal to which Walker and Foxconn agreed, the state of Wisconsin will pony up $3 billion in taxpayer-funded economic incentives to the company, making it the fourth-largest corporate-welfare deal in U.S. history. That means if the deal actually does fulfill its promise of 13,000 new jobs, it would come at the cost of more than $230,000 per job in public money. According to an estimate by the Legislative Fiscal Bureau, Wisconsin’s nonpartisan budget office, the state wouldn’t break even on its $3 billion incentive package until 2043—and that’s only if the deal actually does create 13,000 jobs, which is uncertain to say the least. This week, Walker will try to jam the Foxconn agreement through Wisconsin’s Republican-controlled legislature, which must approve it. But the deal has come under a great deal of scrutiny, thanks to both Foxconn and Walker’s troubling histories with labor and economic development deals.

Trump, Walker, and the Foxconn Con