VOTE ALERT: Will Congress Subsidize China's Nuclear Buildup?

In previous posts, I have written about how Congress regularly gives away billions of dollars of taxpayer money to already-wealthy corporations. In the past, bought-off politicians in Congress have turned back bipartisan efforts to cut off some of the most egregious giveaways. Tomorrow, there will be another courageous effort on the floor of the U.S. House.

Specifically, a bipartisan group of lawmakers will offer an amendment to the Foreign Operations Appropriations Bill that will prohibit the federal government's Export-Import Bank from approving federal loans or loan guarantees for the construction of nuclear power plants in Communist China. Amazingly, the Export-Import bank has already given preliminary approval to these loans, ignoring all concerns about security or about wasting U.S. taxpayer money. The bipartisan legislation would overturn that Export-Import bank decision. The amendment is being sponsored by Reps. Bernie Sanders (I), Dana Rohrabacher (R), Tim Ryan (D), Ron Paul (R) and Dennis Kucinich (D).

But let's say you don't care about the serious security concerns these subsidies raise. And let's say you buy the spin that these subsidies will be going to help an American company, and thus will help create American jobs. Even that economic rationale doesn't hold up under scrutiny. Check out this factoid from a letter being circulated on Capitol Hill by the legislation's authors:

"Not only is this a terrible deal, the nuclear division of Westinghouse isn't even owned by a United States company. In 1998, British National Fuels, owned by the British government, purchased the nuclear division of Westinghouse. And, while a portion of this nuclear technology will be made in the U.S., the Chinese government has indicated that eventually all of this sensitive technology will be made in China. In other words, this U.S. taxpayer backed loan will be going to subsidize a
British-owned company for the transfer of U.S. nuclear technology to Communist China that will end up destroying U.S. jobs."

The letter goes on to correctly say that such a deal "is absurd." Will Congress continue to be bought off and support this kind of corporate giveaway, despite its national security risks? Or will Congress actually stand up to Big Money and do the right thing? Stay tuned...