Ford is closing the St. Paul Ford Twin Cities Assembly Plant this year here in Minnesota.The Plant is built on the high banks over-looking the Mighty Mississippi River where over two-thousand workers were employed assembling Ford Ranger pick-up trucks. Compliments of the U.S. tax-payers who built and maintained a hydro-dam, Ford powered this plant FOR FREE for over 80 years and Ford was allowed to sell for its own profits, huge amounts of "excess" electricity which could have been used to light the public schools for free, too. Ford got all kinds of tax-breaks and tax-abatements and tax-payers even foot the complete bill for a college-training center just recently built and physically attached to the plant. Now Ford intends to bulldoze everything over and go into the upscale apartment rental real-estate business. Where will Ford now build and assemble the Ford Ranger? In a brand new plant it just opened up in Thailand. This after the Democrats gave Ford millions more, including money to pay its workers' wages!
These Democrats said the hand-out would result in this plant continuing to operate until 2085!
It is not only the present workers who will lose their jobs but over the projected promised another 85 years of operation this plant would have employed well over 20,000 workers.
Obama was in Minnesota campaigning and he was just here twice over the last month talking about, "jobs, jobs, jobs."
Local and state politicians say they can't afford to bring the plant under public ownership where some kind of joint venture between Minnesota, China, Japan and Canada could most likely be worked out producing clean green vehicles and other "green" energy equipment--- no money they say; not even to protect over twenty-thousand jobs.
Too much money being squandered on wars and no taxes on the rich--- oh, yes, Ford has absconded to Thailand to build its Rangers without paying a lot of their property taxes because for years--- over 80 years--- some absent-minded assessors forgot to put the property on the books.