Following news reports that Scott Walker’s flagship jobs agency awarded millions of dollars in taxpayer funds to companies that later outsourced Wisconsin jobs to foreign countries, the Racine Journal Times is calling out the “astonishing” failure of WEDC to ensure that Wisconsin tax dollars are used to grow Wisconsin jobs.
Both the Menomonee Falls-based Eaton Corporation and the Plexus Corporation in Neenah reportedly received millions in financial rewards from the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation to create jobs in Wisconsin, only to layoff workers whose jobs were outsourced to facilities in foreign countries.
The Journal Times opines that, “If you’re a company taking Wisconsin’s money in the form of a tax credit in the name of bringing more jobs to Wisconsin, we would have thought it would be understood or made clear to you that we expect that jobs would not be leaving not only the Badger State, but the United States. We think it’s time that expectation was put into writing, with an agreement between the WEDC and participating companies that if jobs leave the state, Wisconsin gets its money back in the form of a revocation of the tax credit and a demand of payment for the unpaid taxes.”
Read the Journal Times op-ed in its entirety here.
