Gov. Scott Walker’s head-turning $3 billion deal with Foxconn continues to attract its share of skeptics, including a new commentary posted at Econofact on Monday.

John C. Brown, a professor at Clark University, argues that the deal, which the entire state would pay for, would benefit only one region of Wisconsin (an assertion the governor would dispute).

Brown, a former visiting scholar at the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, writes:

“The Foxconn project comes at a high cost with uncertain economic benefits, but clear political payoffs. The political economy of Foxconn suggests who the winners will be: the governor of the state, for whom the proposal is the cornerstone of an effort to redeem himself on a pledge of job creation; the speaker of the House of Representatives, who can claim credit for a multi-billion infusion of investment in his district; and owners of land for the greenfield site, who will be paid sums well above the going price for farmland. For most of the rest of the state’s 2.8 million employed residents, the Foxconn deal likely misses the target. Near-term, it guarantees all residents will pay millions of net costs in higher taxes or reduced services. Promised for the longer term are jobs most likely concentrated in one of the most prosperous regions of the state and mostly inaccessible to those in the greatest need of an effective — and equitable — strategy for economic development.”

Brown argues that studies have shown that whatever spillover benefits emerge from a development such as Foxconn will be limited to the immediate region around the plant.

But what about the claim by the Walker administration that Foxconn would launch an entirely new “economic ecosystem” in Wisconsin?

Don’t bet on it, Brown says.

“A well-respected study of the emergence of the highly successful Silicon Valley cluster finds the possibility unlikely, citing the ‘foolishness of directive public policy efforts to jump-start’ creation of such clusters,” Brown writes.

Brown argues that the money would be better spent on something else — higher education.

“Careful studies have shown that expenditures on higher education can have a payoff for all workers, including those in manufacturing. For instance, each one percent increase in the college-educated share of the labor force in a city raises manufacturing productivity by 0.7 percent according to one study. Most of this increase goes into higher wages. The $200 million annual net expense of the Foxconn deal during the start-up years (2021-2026) is equal to one-fifth of the state tax revenues devoted to the entire University of Wisconsin System.”

Brown received his bachelor’s degree from UW in 1978, and he is an academic, after all, so maybe he’s biased on that last point.

But his central argument rings true to me.

Are we putting way too many eggs in one basket?

That’s another good question for the state Senate to think about as it considers the deal in the coming days.

David D. Haynes is editorial page editor of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Email: david.haynes@jrn.com. Twitter: @DavidDHaynes