Category Archives: Wisconsin

Donald Trump’s “eighth wonder of the world” shrinks from $10 billion to $674 million

Article from Reuters, “Foxconn mostly abandons $10 billion Wisconsin project touted by Trump”:

Under a deal with the state of Wisconsin announced on Tuesday, Foxconn will reduce its planned investment to $672 million from $10 billion and cut the number of new jobs to 1,454 from 13,000.

The Foxconn-Wisconsin deal was first announced to great fanfare at the White House in July 2017, with Trump boasting of it as an example of how his “America first” agenda could revive U.S. tech manufacturing.

My discussion in 2017, citing Legislative Fiscal Bureau assessment, here. Formal modeling of possible economic impacts from CROWE in 2017, and critical assessment by Mercatus of the package here.

And, all of us are wondering – where is Scott Walker?

Wisconsin during the Trade War

The national trade deficit is larger than when Trump took office. We don’t know for sure the gap between Wisconsin goods exports and imports. We do know the gap between exports of goods originating in Wisconsin, and imports with destinations in Wisconsin, as recorded in the Customs data.

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Wisconsin Economic Outlook, November 2020

The Wisconsin Department of Revenue has released its Economic Outlook, dated November 22nd. The forecasts incorporate assumptions that include: “November IHS Markit forecast shows a slowing down of the economic recovery in the last quarter of 2020 and beginning of 2021. Several high-frequency indicators point to a further deceleration in October, but the forecast does not include a double dip. ….Wisconsin personal income growth accelerated in 2020 pushed by the federal stimulus funds, but it’s expected to decline 1.9% in 2021, as the fiscal stimulus fades. …The current forecast assumes no further fiscal stimulus and that a vaccine will be available by mid2021.”

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