Foxconn was sold to Wisconsin taxpayers six months ago at $3 billion and now the total public cost is calculated to be as much as $4.5 billion. The price tag keeps going up.

MADISON, WI – This week State Representative Gordon Hintz (D - Oshkosh) offered the weekly Democratic radio address.

Audio File of Radio Address

Text of Radio Address

Hello, this is State Representative Gordon Hintz with this week’s Democratic Radio Address.

The Foxconn project is a bad deal and getting worse every day for Wisconsin taxpayers.

Governor Walker originally wanted to give $3 billion to a Taiwanese billionaire so he would build a factory in southeastern Wisconsin.

Now this week, the non-partisan Legislative Fiscal Bureau calculated that the total public cost to be as much as $4.5 billion.

That’s a 50 percent increase in just six months.

Foxconn is already the largest taxpayer giveaway by a state to a foreign corporation in our nation’s history.

Every Wisconsin family should be alarmed that the price tag keeps going up.

Foxconn follows Governor Walker’s track record on job creation and economic development.

Long on promises but short on results.

The Kestrel Aircraft Company received $25 million under Governor Walker’s watch to create 600 jobs in Superior.

Instead, Kestrel defaulted on millions of dollars in state loans and left local residents holding the bag.

Walker made outrageous promises to the G-Tac iron-ore mining company to bring mining back to Wisconsin.

They left the state in 2015 without ever creating a single job.

When Governor Walker was campaigning in 2010, he promised to create 250,000 jobs in four years, a number he has failed to reach in seven years.

The results speak for themselves.

Committing $4.5 billion over the next 15 years on a highly automated plant in a world with constantly changing technology is not just expensive, it’s risky.

$4.5 billion for Foxconn will come at the expense of K-12 education, higher education, and statewide transportation infrastructure.

Wisconsin Democrats understand that our state needs homegrown investment, not more of the same failed taxpayer giveaways from Governor Walker.

Wisconsin deserves better than the Foxconn deal.