Donald Trump and Scott Walker may have perpetrated the biggest political scam in Wisconsin history

Do y'all remember when President Donald Trump and then-Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker promised people in Southeastern Wisconsin that a giant liquid crystal display (LCD) factory by electronics manufacturer Foxconn was going to bring massive amounts of jobs to Wisconsin?

Well, Walker was voted out of office by the people of Wisconsin last year, and Louis Woo, a special assistant to Foxconn CEO Terry Gou, is saying that Foxconn may not build the giant factory that Trump, Walker, and Foxconn promised after all:

When Terry Gou, founder and CEO of the (Taiwanese) manufacturer Foxconn, came to Wisconsin to celebrate his company's first American factory, he was in a Midwestern state of mind. “This is our home, my home, Wisconsin,” he told an audience including then-Governor Scott Walker in 2017, citing Walker's strong family traditions as a reason he was so eager to work in the state. The deal guaranteed 3,000 factory jobs for Wisconsin workers with Walker and President Trump estimating it could rise as high as 13,000.

Now the company is saying that the very idea of a factory in Wisconsin is up for question. Louis Woo, special assistant to Gou, tells Reuters in an interview that the company's entire Wisconsin project is being reconsidered.

[...]

“In terms of TV, we have no place in the U.S.,” Woo tells Reuters, “we can’t compete.” The company's initial estimates were that it would have 5,200 employees in the state by 2020, now Reuters says the company expects 1,000 employees by the year 2020.

Those jobs will likely not be in manufacturing, Woo says. Rather, they would be part of a “technology hub” in Wisconsin that would mostly consist of research facilities with minor packaging and assembly operations.

To put it mildly, Donald Trump and Scott Walker may have perpetrated the biggest political scam in Wisconsin history. Trump and Walker promised that Foxconn was going to build a massive factory that was going to employ thousands, if not tens of thousands, of workers. Now, Foxconn is already refusing to live up to job creation standards set by the State of Wisconsin, rendering them ineligible for some of the corporate welfare that they were promised. Now, Foxconn may not build the giant job-creating factory that they promised.

It is looking increasingly like the people of Wisconsin have been swindled by Donald Trump, Scott Walker, and Foxconn. Corporate welfare scams are not a sustainable way to encourage government investment in the private-sector economy.