WIsconsin Partisans Resurrecting the Badger Automobile Industry

There are modest prospects that the GM Janesville plant or the Chrysler Kenosha plant could be utilized by a resurgent American automobile industry in the next year or two. General Motors is considering Janesville among a dozen sites for three small car plants. The Kenosha plant might be utilized as part of the reorganization by one of Chrysler's European partners.

Governor Doyle made it clear this week that he is fully committed to working with everyone, starting with the automobile manufacturers and every political leader regardless of political party.

While manufacturers look at taxes when making location decisions, the culture, the schools, and the business environment are more critical factors.

The business environment is a curious one. It includes a bipartisan approach to working with companies. Businesses do not like to become the political pawns of either political party. While companies enjoy attention for new products and recognition for their community involvement, they prefer to be under the radar when it comes to political controversy.

That is why WMC members ordered the organization to halt its more partisan political activities.

If the location effort gets caught in crossfire between Democrats and Republicans, kiss goodbye any hope of resurrecting automobile manufacturing in Wisconsin.

If the efforts succeed, there will be plenty of credit to go around.

Comments

[antpoppa]

How many millions of dollars in retooling will this cost the State of Wisconsin. I hate to be cynical, but we've been kicked like begging dogs over and again. Are we crawling out to the street to be kicked again. What safeguards our investment?
P.S. Note to myself that I don't even assume there will not be pay for play.

[Belleville]

With everyone searching for hope of a taxpaying workforce, its a nice thought to resurect a couple of dying plants. As a child I watched Allis Chalmers in WM disappear with 6000 jobs. I spent ten years in the Fox Valley watching old paper machines that could not produce what was needed to remain open. Much is the same in Kenosha and Janesville. The plant structure, capacity, and workforce are all outdated with what is needed to compete worldwide. The Gov makes nice politics while attempting to do the right thing, the infrastructure of the elective government top down is also outdated and clueless. We should build on our strengths and re-tool for a monster size cheese making facility or the worlds largest cow processing plant in either city. Now that is something the rest of the country would believe we could accomplish. Anything else is a pipe dream.

[antpoppa]

Reply to Belleville

It has been suggested www.growpower.org.
Madison had made a commitment to many community gardens, I doubt that 20% have been realized, but bike trails across prairie land are financed.

[rich]

Gov. Doyle suggested, belatedly, that the Janesville plant be converted to produce passenger rail and light rail components. What substantive steps has Doyle taken to put Wisconsin manufacturers at the forefront of companies vying to meet the the demand for rail cars and components? What substantive steps has Doyle taken to position UW transportation researchers ahead of the transformation taking place in transportation? Anything?

It was bad enough Doyle waited until GM announced the closing of the Janesville plant before he saw the writing on the wall --- he should have been all over this and related issues. But Doyle hasn't really led the way on conservation, energy efficiency --- or Wisconsin's traditional competitive edge: manufacturing. Way to get caught with your pants down .. . even when we all knew this moment was coming.

antpoppa, link is:

http://www.growingpower.org/

[Phil]

You want WMC to stop their political activities so that the left - unions, tribes, trial lawyers and unemployed former mayors - have no competition in elections. You care as much about the business climate as I care what horses you are betting on.

[The Sconz]

Your point is directly related to the paradoxical relationship U.S. Big Business' has always had with the government, in which business is suspicious of "big govt" regulations and oversight, yet lobbies for corporate welfare as well as government contracts (the bigger the business, the more likely) and government protection. There's really no exception to this rule. The idea that a CEO of a company would refrain from trying to obtain all the favors from government possible because he's philosophically opposed to "big government" is absurd, as the auto industry debacle illustrates.