Here & Now

Here & Now for June 29, 2018

Announcer:

The following program is part of our “Here and Now” 2018 Wisconsin Vote election coverage.

Donald Trump:

Moments ago, we broke ground on a plant that will provide jobs for much more than 13,000 Wisconsin workers.

Frederica Freyberg:

President Donald Trump thunders into Mount Pleasant on Thursday for Foxconn. I’m Frederica Freyberg. Tonight on “Here and Now,” a Taiwanese corporation breaks ground in Wisconsin even as a Wisconsin company announces new production overseas. We dig into the come-and-go commerce of Foxconn and Harley-Davidson. One Wisconsin family’s struggle with immigration policy. Wisconsin’s gerrymandering case and the retirement of Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy. Democratic for governor Mahlon Mitchell is here. It’s “Here and Now” for June 29.

Announcer:

Funding for “Here and Now” is provided in part by Friends of Wisconsin Public Television.

Frederica Freyberg:

The Foxconn footprint is getting even bigger in Wisconsin. Today, the Taiwanese tech company announced it’s buying an office building in downtown Green Bay. The space will be used for an innovation center to develop applications for Foxconn’s 8K and 5G display technology. The company says it’s the first time these displays will be manufactured in the United States. The center is expected to employ about 200 people. The Foxconn ground-breaking Thursday brought news that the Mount Pleasant production plant may be scaled down from the version originally planned. The company, however, stands by its commitment to spend $10 billion building the plant and its promise to bring up to 13,000 jobs. The larger factory Foxconn says is planned for the future. But for now, products that use smaller glass screens will be manufactured instead of the original plan for larger display panels. None of that lessened President Trump’s enthusiasm and his Wisconsin welcome to the Taiwanese firm.

Donald Trump:

So even at this early stage, the economics benefits of this new plant are being felt in 60 of Wisconsin’s 72 counties already. Don’t worry. In another three weeks, it will be 72.

[applause]

Frederica Freyberg:

Meanwhile, the Democratic National Committee weighed in on the Foxconn launch saying, “Donald Trump and Scott Walker are both anti-worker and consistently put big corporations and the 1% ahead of hard-working families.” President Trump spoke just 4.5 miles from the nearest Harley-Davidson dealer, a symbol of the president’s contrasting week with corporations, new and old, in Wisconsin. Foxconn is coming as Harley-Davidson is going, taking some of its production overseas for its European buyers. According to a filing Harley-Davidson made with the Securities & Exchange Commission this week, the E.U.’s retaliatory tariffs imposed in response to the U.S. tariffs on steel and aluminum have increased from 6% to 31%. These tariffs, Harley says, will cost the motorcycle manufacturer approximately $2,200 per motorcycle exported from the U.S. to the E.U. The company estimates the annual impact due to the E.U. tariffs to be approximately $90 to $100 million. House Speaker Paul Ryan spoke out against the tariffs this week, even as President Trump defended them and admonished Harley for its overseas plans.

Donald Trump:

Harley-Davidson, please build those beautiful motorcycles in the USA, please, okay? Don’t get cute with us.

Paul Ryan:

I don’t think tariffs are the right way to go. I think tariffs are basically taxes. What ends up happening is you get escalating tariffs or escalating taxes. One of the reasons we did tax reform is to make it easier for businesses to keep manufacturing in America and exporting overseas.

Frederica Freyberg:

For more on tariffs and trade wars and Milwaukee’s own Harley-Davidson, we turn now to Edward Alden, senior fellow with the Council on Foreign Relations, who joins us by phone from Washington. Thanks very much for doing so.

Edward Alden:

It’s great to be with you. Thank you.

Frederica Freyberg:

President Trump was in Wisconsin late this week trumpeting the Asian company Foxconn breaking ground here and hosting a fundraiser in the city that built Harley-Davidson and yet the president’s “America First” trade policy is sending Harley overseas to make these motorcycles for the European market. Could Harley’s decision on this have been predicted?

Edward Alden:

Oh, I think it was easily predictable. The combination of the steel tariffs, which have raised input costs for Harley, and then of course the European retaliation made it not economical for the company to export from the United States to Europe. So I think that was very predictable. The president seemed somewhat surprised, but he shouldn’t have been.

Frederica Freyberg:

So if this is the reality and response from this iconic company, will others soon follow?

Edward Alden:

I think some others will have to do the same, though not every company has the sort of flexibility that Harley has. Harley has several production locations overseas. So it’s not that complicated for the company to shift production. I’m more worried about the smaller producers. There are a lot of little companies around the country that are complaining about rising costs of steel and aluminum. The price has essentially doubled since the tariffs were imposed. Those companies are facing higher costs. They do not have that kind of option. There’s a small nail producer in the United States that has cut jobs quite significantly. And actually you’re hearing in the oil patch in Texas and elsewhere, their costs for drilling equipment, other things are going up. That’s not particularly mobile. So not every country is going have– excuse me, not every company is going to have the sort of option that Harley-Davidson had here.

Frederica Freyberg:

And what about the U.S. steel industry? Is this helping that industry?

Edward Alden:

I mean, I think it will, yeah. You know, you’re seeing U.S. steel has opened a mill that it had idled because of lack of demand. You’ve seen the opening of a new aluminum rolling mill in Kentucky. The problem is the number of jobs in those industries pales against the number of jobs in the industries that use these materials. About 140,000 jobs across the country in steel and aluminum production. Hundreds of thousands more in steel-using companies of various sorts like Harley-Davidson. So there will be winners and losers, but I think it’s pretty clear that the losers are going to outnumber the winners here by a considerable margin.

Frederica Freyberg:

Does what’s shaping up, if it’s not already a global trade war, affect the larger global economy?

Edward Alden:

We will have to see. I mean, so far the numbers are pretty small, you know. You know, $10, $20 billion here, maybe $50 billion against China in the context of $18 trillion U.S. economy. Those numbers aren’t big. But if we get escalating retaliation, absolutely it could affect the global economy. You’ve actually seen markets soften a lot. I mean here in the United States the Dow is down sort of 10% on the year and international markets have taken a bigger hit. This is almost all the product of this trade uncertainty because generally U.S. economy is pretty strong and so are overseas economies. I think that could easily get worse.

Frederica Freyberg:

My other question other than the markets, what’s kind of the chamber of commerce response and reaction to this?

Edward Alden:

Well, this has been very interesting because of course, they’re upset about the trade policy. They don’t like the tariffs. They have been moderately vocal. But the companies were so happy as a result of the big corporate tax cut they got courtesy of the Republican Congress, signed by President Trump in December, they’re very happy with what the president is doing on deregulation. The economy is pretty strong right now. Normally you would have expected enormous hue and cry over this. Certainly if it had been a Democratic president doing this, chamber of commerce would have gone crazy. But they have been relatively muted so far. I think if this escalates, particularly if the Trump Administration puts tariffs on imported cars, I think that could change and the business community could become far more vocal than it has been so far.

Frederica Freyberg:

And yet could President Trump’s protectionist trade policy work in the end to the United States’ advantage?

Edward Alden:

Well, I mean, that’s not what history tends to show, right? It will — I mean, there’s some companies that will locate in the United States to try to get around the tariffs. But we will lose markets in all the fastest-growing economies in the world. And the last time we experimented with this sort of protectionism on a large scale was in the 1930s and it didn’t work out well then. So nobody can really read the future perfectly, but based on what we know from the past, this is likely to be very costly for the American economy and hurt a lot of other economies around the world, including our allies.

Frederica Freyberg:

Very briefly, would Foxconn be an example of a company that would locate in the United States to get around the tariffs?

Edward Alden:

Well, they’ve planned this for a long time, so they had intended to do it anyway. Though I think some of it was because of the rising concern in the United States over production being located in China. So I think some of that was politically motivated to try to take a little bit of pressure off of the company. I can imagine other companies making the same decision. They’re always in these trade disputes winners and losers and there will be places in the country I think that will see more new investment. That’ll be far outweighed I think by companies like Harley-Davidson that move production elsewhere. We’re about to get a real test of those theories.

Frederica Freyberg:

All right. Edward Alden, thanks very much.

Edward Alden:

Great to be with you. Thank you.

Frederica Freyberg:

In tonight’s closer look, Congressional attempts at passing an immigration bill failed this week. Among the measures in the legislation was a renewed hope for immigrants eligible for the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program. One Waukesha man could have been eligible for DACA but now fears deportation. Marisa Wojcik has the story.

Marisa Wojcik:

When Alysha Ferreyra woke up on June 11, she didn’t know that the father of her children would be gone by the end of the day.

Alysha Ferreyra:

There you go, honey. Nice job.

Marisa Wojcik:

Her ex-husband, Franco Ferreyra, walked into the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Office in Milwaukee with his attorney for a routine check-in, but didn’t walk out. He was arrested and taken to the Dodge County Detention Facility, where he is still being held. Ferreyra’s attorney, Matt Luening, says technically ICE was operating within the law, but it was still a surprise.

Alysha Ferreyra:

He wouldn’t have walked his client willingly into the ICE Immigration office if he knew that his client, Franco was going to get detained.

Marisa Wojcik:

Ferreyra came to the U.S. from Argentina in 2001, when he was just 13. He came on the Visa Waiver Program, which expired after 90 days. He’s lived in Waukesha ever since and attempts at finding a legal status have failed.

Alysha Ferreyra:

We got married in 2011, went through the process. We just got a denial letter just saying that we weren’t able to get his legal residency.

Marisa Wojcik:

Ferreyra’s attorney doesn’t know why Immigration began to pursue him now. But he has a theory. In September of last year, Ferreyra was cited for driving without a license.

Alysha Ferreyra:

From there, it kind of seemed like everything kind of snowballed into the Immigration kind of, on his tail, showed up at his sister’s house, at his place, and at his work.

Marisa Wojcik:

Immigrants’ rights advocates worry that law enforcement and immigration officials can use minor traffic stops as a conduit to deportation. But Dan Baumann of the Waukesha Police Department says that’s far from the case. A person’s legal status is irrelevant when it comes to routine contacts and they do not check in with ICE. Immigration and Customs Enforcement asserted that people with criminal records are more of a concern to them. They could not confirm why Ferreyra came to be on their radar. But other unknowns loom larger for Franco.

Alysha Ferreyra:

He’s been here for 18 years. He’s been in the United States longer than he’s been in Argentina. He doesn’t have a home in Argentina. His home is here. His kids are here. His whole life is here in Wisconsin.

Marisa Wojcik:

Ferreyra’s attorney is hoping a pending ruling by a federal judge to renew DACA applications will be Ferreyra’s best chance at remaining in his Wisconsin home. For more information about ICE detention centers in Wisconsin, visit our partners at WisContext.org.

Frederica Freyberg:

All eyes are on the implications of the retirement of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy. In Wisconsin, plaintiffs in the legislative redistricting lawsuit had hoped to sway Kennedy in a renewed case before the high court. But with the justice regarded as a sometimes swing vote stepping down this summer, those particular hopes would appear to be dashed. What are other implications of Kennedy’s departure? For that we turn to Ryan Owens, an expert on the Supreme Court and UW-Madison political science professor. Thanks very much for being here.

Ryan Owens:

Sure. Happy to.

Frederica Freyberg:

So the Supreme Court just rejected North Carolina’s partisan gerrymandering claim and Justice Kennedy will be gone by the time Wisconsin’s case would have a chance to go back up. What does all this say about the Gill v. Whitford claim?

Ryan Owens:

I would think at this point partisan gerrymandering as a key topic that the court is going to look at, I think the decks have cleared for that. I just don’t think there’s going to be any appetite on the Supreme Court other than among the four liberal justices to really get involved in this issue. Among the conservatives, Kennedy was the only one who signaled any interest in the matter whatsoever and I can’t imagine that President Trump would name a successor who would share his interest in that topic. I would think in terms of trying to move the ball forward on that issue, it’s just dead in the water.

Frederica Freyberg:

More generally, there’s alternately glee and despondence, depending on your politics over Kennedy’s departure. What will his departure mean now going forward for the course of the court?

Ryan Owens:

I think there’s a number of things that are going to happen now that he has retired. I mean, the most immediate thing is if you assume that President Trump nominates a conservative in the mold of Neil Gorsuch which I think we have every reason to believe he will, it’s going to make Chief Justice Roberts actually the swing vote on the court and that will make him probably the most powerful chief justice in modern history in my mind maybe since Chief Justice Marshall. He’ll be sitting in the middle of the court and will allow the court to move to the right only so far as he wants it to. That’s one of the immediate implications just in terms of the personnel on the court. Now, if you want to talk a little bit about doctrine or topics that might be up for grabs, I think a lot of people have talked about abortion. Others have talked about same-sex marriage. I don’t see either one of those two items being at the top of the list for a more conservative court. I would think that topics like affirmative action might be. There’s a lot of philosophical disagreement on the right with using racial standards in the selection of say college applications or work or things of that nature. Chief Justice Roberts said in a case not too long ago that the way to stop discriminating based on race is to stop discriminating based on race. So I think that’s clearly going to be something that the court will consider.

Frederica Freyberg:

Why don’t you think those other social issues will be under consideration?

Ryan Owens:

I think the same-sex marriage case, I think you saw the court — many of the justices sort of move probably personally on that matter somewhat to the left. I know Chief Justice Roberts did not like the methodology the court used to sustain the right to same-sex marriage. But now that that right is there, I’m not sure that he wants to put the court’s capital on the line and take it away, especially so quickly after it was granted.

Frederica Freyberg:

Any hazard on your part on the long line of possibilities who the president will put forward?

Ryan Owens:

Trump of course put out a short list a while ago but I think there are a few candidates on that list right now who have to be rising to the top. Four of them I think that I have in mind: Amy Coney Barrett out of the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals, and I can come back to them in a second. Raymond Kethledge out of the 6th Circuit. There is– in addition to that we’ve got Brett Kavanaugh from the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals. And potentially, I’m not sure if I said Ray Kethledge from the 6th. And Amul Thapar who is another circuit court of appeals judge. Now they all come with advantages. Amy Coney Barrett is a conservative female Catholic justice–uh, judge. She could help Trump out with some of those folks. Amul Thapar is– would be the first Indian supreme court justice, very conservative as well. Kavanaugh is a conservative. Kethledge is actually quite conservative and he’s well-known for writing very, very good opinions. So any of those four I think would be good selections. Conservatives would get behind them.

Frederica Freyberg:

We need to leave it there. Ryan Owens, thanks very much.

Ryan Owens:

You bet.

Frederica Freyberg:

Now for state politics and the still-crowded primary field of Democrats running for governor. We continue our series of one-on-one candidate interviews tonight with Mahlon Mitchell. Mitchell was born in Milwaukee and grew up in Delavan. He has served as a firefighter for 20 years and is currently the president of the Professional Firefighters of Wisconsin. This is Mitchell’s second run for statewide office. He ran unsuccessfully for lieutenant governor in 2012. Mahlon Mitchell joins us now. Thanks very much for being here.

Mahlon Mitchell:

Thanks for having me again.

Frederica Freyberg:

First I want to ask you about Act 10. What is your response when people say that you had initial praise for Scott Walker’s Budget Repair Bill?

Mahlon Mitchell:

Well, first my response is they’re wrong. What we did was that bill came out on Friday and before we actually were able to read the bill, the 150-page Budget Repair Bill, myself as well as the police, my colleague in the police, we wrote just saying that we appreciate that Scott Walker felt that public safety is important. Now, after I actually read the bill, and actually after seeing how detrimental it was to public sector employees in the state, we came out against it right away. We were at the first protest. Look at the body of work we did every day, day in and day out, in 2011, where we stood with our brothers and sisters. Now they call is solidarity. Back then we were just calling it the right thing to do.

Frederica Freyberg:

Why do you believe that you should be the progressive choice for Wisconsin?

Mahlon Mitchell:

Because I’m progressive, but I want to be productive and pragmatic. And being pragmatic, you have to actually work with both sides of the aisle to get things done and then you’re productive. If you’re not productive, then who cares how progressive you are. But I’m a progressive. I think the state is one of progress and that is moving forward, that’s looking forward and making sure we get back to a government that actually takes care of people.

Frederica Freyberg:

Why do you think that you in particular can beat Scott Walker?

Mahlon Mitchell:

Well, it’s going to require something different. It’s going to require something uniquely different to actually beat Governor Walker this time. We’ve tried the elder statesman in the past with Tom Barrett who I supported as well. We tried Mary Burke four years later who had the business acumen who I thought would have made a great governor. We, me and my firefighters, also supported. But it’s going to require us to get people excited around the state. We’re going to have to do well with our base but also fire people up in rural areas and across this entire state. I believe I’m the best candidate suited to do that.

Frederica Freyberg:

The latest Marquette Law School Poll had you at 4%. Another candidate polling at that same place has dropped out. What will you do?

Mahlon Mitchell:

I’m in it to win it. I’m not dropping out. I’ve never quit anything. We’re in it. We built a campaign and a structure that in my opinion is second to none. Polls are one thing. Polls take a snapshot of that time at that day. But I’m looking–the polls I’m looking at come August 14. That’s people actually going to the polls. I believe we have the best chance of winning the primary.

Frederica Freyberg:

Foxconn, as you know, just broke ground in Wisconsin. You opposed the state incentive plan for Foxconn. But now that it’s a reality, are you behind it?

Mahlon Mitchell:

I’ve always said Foxconn’s a bad deal. There’s no bank that would give you a loan, $4.5 billion, to get a return on investment 25 years later. But now, like you said, Foxconn is here. The bill’s been signed. The bill’s been passed. The contract has been signed. What I think, what I know we have to do with Foxconn, what our next governor has to do, is make Foxconn accountable. And also make sure those 13,000 jobs if that’s true indeed what we’re going to have, that people that are under-employed and that are unemployed are able to actually get to those jobs and get to those positions. So that’s setting up a regional transit authority so that people on the north side of Milwaukee and people in Milwaukee and Racine and Kenosha and in-between that need those jobs can get to those jobs. Because if we can give $4.5 billion to Foxconn, we gotta work like hell to make sure we can actually get people to those jobs.

Frederica Freyberg:

On the economy, of the priorities that you state to grow it and maintain it, what’s the most important?

Mahlon Mitchell:

I think we got to give the state of Wisconsin a raise. When middle class and those that live below middle class wages, when working class families have money in their pocket, they spend it. When they spend money, they actually boost our economy. I’ve come out for $15 an hour way before it was sexy. A lot of my opponents are saying that now but I’ve been fighting for $15 for a long time and that’s going to boost our economy. We will be able to pump billions of dollars back into our economy. At the end of the day, together we rise. When everyone has more money and when the economy is doing well, we all will be doing better in our state.

Frederica Freyberg:

On education one of the things you say you want to do is instate a college loan forgiveness program for public service. How would that work?

Mahlon Mitchell:

Well it’s simple. I actually got the idea from watching my son unfortunately play video games for 12 hours one day on a Sunday. I wanted to see how long he would do it. So I said I don’t believe he should be able — he’s in 8th grade. Go from 8th grade to doing four years at high school, then we give him free tuition. I would have those 5th graders, 6th graders get off their phones, get off the video games and actually do public service. Actually do community service, meaning that they go back in their communities, they’re going to shovel snow, rake leaves for a senior who shouldn’t be doing it and can’t do it. They’re going to help the veteran who served our country. They’re going to help at the vet hospital. They’re going to help at the local soup kitchen, help at the homeless shelter. Once they meet a threshold of hours, then they’ll have earned tuition, paid for by the state for a four-year program.

Frederica Freyberg:

Very briefly, what would you do to change health care in Wisconsin?

Mahlon Mitchell:

Well we have over 300,000 people in the state that need health care that don’t have any. So we need to shore up the ACA. I would have taken– as governor I will fight for the federal dollars for the Medicaid expansion to make sure we put — that could insure about another 85,000 folks. But I want to make sure we have a BadgerCare for all. And it’s going to cost money, right? And people say, “How are you going to pay for it?” Well, again, if we can give $4 and a half billion to Foxconn, we can make sure every person in the state actually has adequate health insurance.

Frederica Freyberg:

All right. We leave it there. Mahlon Mitchell, thanks very much.

Mahlon Mitchell:

Thanks for having me.

Frederica Freyberg:

We continue to follow up on statements candidates have made on our program and provide additional information. This week Paul Soglin and housing.

Marisa Wojcik:

When it comes to the economy, Democratic candidate for governor Paul Soglin recently told “Here and Now” that affordable housing must come first.

Paul Soglin:

Whether you have a job, access to health care, all the other things that are essential for a robust family, if there is no affordable housing, the efforts in these other areas generally fail.

Marisa Wojcik:

So let’s look at the landscape of affordable housing in Wisconsin. A recent report from the National Low Income Housing Coalition looks at what renters pay compared with what they earn. One-third of Wisconsin’s households are renters. The average fair market rent for a two-bedroom home in Wisconsin is $859. So let’s say you’re the average renter. Now, these estimates are assuming that you’re not spending your entire paycheck on rent. You make $13.35 an hour and in order to afford a two-bedroom home, you would have to work 50 hours a week. Now let’s say you earn minimum wage, which in Wisconsin is $7.25 an hour. In order to afford that same two-bedroom home, you would have to work 91 hours a week. The affordable housing landscape also changes with the actual landscape. Neighborhoods that were once affordable to low income residents are being uprooted by higher income earners. As amenities in urban areas improve, housing costs rise. We looked at the Dane County metropolitan area as an example. In 2018, the average fair market rent for a two-bedroom in this area was $1,072. But only four years ago, that average was $164 cheaper. Some say these measurements are too simplistic and that disparities in health, employment, transportation and other factors have to weigh in. For these and other fast facts, visit wpt.org.

Frederica Freyberg:

That’s all for tonight’s program. But before we go, we say goodbye and thank you to Malcolm Brett, our Director of Broadcasting, retired today. We wish we had time to tell you about his decades of contributions to public radio and television, but the show was just too packed tonight. Actually, Malcolm would have had it no other way. He trusted us, supported our journalism and always had our backs. Thank you, Malcolm, and enjoy your retirement. I’m Frederica Freyberg. Have a great weekend.

Announcer:

Funding for “Here and Now” is provided, in part, by Friends of Wisconsin Public Television.

For more information on “Here and Now’s” 2018 election coverage, go to WisconsinVote.org.