Hurried $252 mil. for I-94 N/S is both outrage and chicken feed

For those of you from Ashland to Green Bay to Boscobel who recently spent your holiday savings account replacing flat tires, ruined shocks or tie rods that had little tie left in them after running over the second-most rutted roads in the country should consider that Wisconsin is hurrying to borrow and spend $252 million in transportation funds to expand and otherwise 'improve' I-94 between Milwaukee County and the Illinois border.

Yes, borrow, from the big bad federal government, because that's how the small government Republicans running Wisconsin roll, if truth be told, so long as the money isn't for stupid frills like saving more than $200 million annually on health care for low income citizens, rural broadband upgrades or building an Amtrak line that could have delivered workers, tech experts and other potential employees from the Madison area to within a shuttle bus (perhaps) run of the very nice Amtrak station already sitting close to Foxconntown in close-by Sturtevant.

But wait: there's more.

That $252 million is being committed so the even more-heavily subsidized Foxconn factory heading for Racine County farmland - -  

- - after local taxpayers begin handing Foxconn another $794 million for site improvements and other amenities which corporate Wisconsin no longer pays for itself  - - can more smoothly run its taxpayer-subsidized assembly and production on which its Taiwan-based owners will pay no corporate income tax.

But Foxconn can collect up to $250 million from the state (read: you and I, et al) annually - - the price of the entire I-94 project set to begin in 2019 - - in so-called refundable tax credits. For 15 years.

Which is about the time that more transportation borrowing will have to be made to repair what all the trucking has done to the roads in and out of Foxconntown.

So get used to those potholes, Bucky, and know your place.