Sunday, December 31, 2023
Friday, December 29, 2023
Tuesday, December 26, 2023
Monday, December 25, 2023
Saturday, December 23, 2023
Friday, December 22, 2023
Thursday, December 21, 2023
Robin Vos says medical marijuana bill likely coming in January
 |
Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, R-Rochester, said the bill would propose something similar to Minnesota's medical marijuana program, which originally allowed for the substance to be sold in pill, oil and liquid forms for people with serious conditions such as HIV, cancer, Crohn's disease, post-traumatic stress disorder and chronic pain. |
Republicans will likely introduce a medical marijuana bill in January that would allow the substance for Wisconsinites with serious conditions, Assembly Speaker Robin Vos said Wednesday.
Vos, R-Rochester, said the bill would propose something similar to Minnesota’s medical marijuana program, which originally allowed for the substance to be sold in pill, oil and liquid forms for people with serious conditions such as HIV, cancer, Crohn’s disease, post-traumatic stress disorder and chronic pain. The Minnesota law was recently modified to allow for smokeable forms of cannabis.
Vos said he’s been operating under the assumption that 50 Assembly Republicans — a majority of the 99-member chamber — would have to support the proposal for it to pass because Democrats typically support broader programs than what it appears Assembly Republicans are slated to introduce.
Vos offered details about the proposal under the condition that the Wisconsin State Journal not seek reactions to it until early Thursday morning. Legislative Democrats haven’t made clear publicly that they would be unanimously opposed to narrower marijuana bills.
Democratic Assembly Minority Leader Greta Neubauer said Democrats were open to discussing the Republican bill.
"We hope that it's a serious proposal from our colleagues that addresses the past harms that have been caused by the criminalization of marijuana and that really allows access for the people who need it," she said Thursday.
Republicans this year stripped provisions to legalize marijuana from Democratic Gov. Tony Evers’ two-year budget.
Without providing more specifics about the bill, Vos said its authors wanted to make sure there would be no pathway “to assume that because we have medicinal (marijuana), someday we’ll have recreational.”
Vos said the bill is different from legislation Sen. Mary Felzkowski, R-Irma, has been working on. It’s unclear what the differences between the proposals will be, but Felzkowski’s last version of the bill also proposed allowing the use of medical marijuana in nonsmokeable forms for people with serious conditions.
Felzkowski’s previous version of the proposal received a public hearing in April 2022, the first hearing in Wisconsin for a marijuana measure since 2009 and the first one ever under a Republican-led Legislature.
Senate Majority Leader Devin LeMahieu, R-Oostburg, who previously said he opposed legalizing marijuana for medical use, has since said Senate Republicans are moving closer to supporting the policy for serious conditions.
An October 2022 Marquette Law School Poll found 64% of registered voters in Wisconsin, including 46% of Republicans, want marijuana to be fully legalized. A 2019 Marquette Law School Poll found 83% of Wisconsinites said medical marijuana should be legal.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Tuesday, December 19, 2023
Saturday, December 16, 2023
Thursday, December 14, 2023
Monday, December 11, 2023
Sunday, December 10, 2023
Saturday, December 9, 2023
Friday, December 8, 2023
Foxconn awarded $6.3 million in tax credits for meeting jobs, capital investment goals
The company has been approved for $6.3 million in tax credits from the Wisconsin Economic Development Corp., for hiring 1,029 full-time workers and investing more than $26 million at its facilities in Racine County for work done in fiscal year 2022.
This year's credit is $2.3 million less than what the company received last year.
Since 2020 Foxconn has received a roughly $43.6 million from taxpayers, which does not include land acquisition or infrastructure upgrades on the property in Mount Pleasant. Foxconn has received more than half of the funding it agreed to under the renegotiated deal with the state in 2021 and could receive up to $80 million through 2025.
In a statement on Thursday the company said it is "committed to Wisconsin and looks forward to growing with the state, county, and village."
"Foxconn has invested over $1 billion in Wisconsin and created approximately 1,000 jobs, a 42% increase over a three-year period and comprising a fifth of our workforce in the United States," the company said. "Foxconn currently manufactures data servers and microinverters in Wisconsin, and the campus remains a strategic asset for the company to respond to market demand with speed and flexibility.”
Foxconn was notified of the credits in a letter from the WEDC in November.
If the company wants to receive the full amount of tax credits from the state next year, it will need to hire at least 134 full-time employees and maintain a minimum of 1,163 full-time employees through 2025. According to the agreement, the company's goal is to employ 1,454 workers by 2026.
More:Here's a short timeline of Foxconn's plans and development in Wisconsin
Current reality far different than when original deal was signed
In 2017, then-Gov. Scott Walker and Foxconn agreed to a $2.85 billion tax incentive package if the company met certain hiring and capital investment goals. At the time Foxconn was promised to bring 13,000 high-tech jobs to Wisconsin and create a massive large-screen LCD manufacturing facility in Mount Pleasant
But by 2021, the development changed significantly from what was talked about four years earlier.
Foxconn was not awarded any credits in the first two years of the deal.
Gov. Tony Evers and officials at the WEDC renegotiated the deal and brought the job numbers down to under 1,500 and the maximum tax credit over the course of the agreement down to $80 million.
Foxconn's physical footprint in Mount Pleasant is also shrinking.
The company agreed to give up its development options on more than 1,300 acres in Wisconsin Innovation Park that will be used by Microsoft to develop a multi-billion-dollar data center complex east and north of Foxconn's campus. Microsoft has promised to build $1.4 billion in new property value by Jan. 1, 2028.
The company began construction this fall on the first building on a 2315 acre parcel that it bought from the village for $50 million. The sale of an additional 1,030 acres is scheduled to close by the end of the month.
The Milwaukee Business Journal first reported the award of tax credits.
Posts
