It is Memorial Day weekend. A time for us to commemorate and reflect upon the ultimate sacrifices given by our fallen citizen-soldiers and the enduring grief of their families and loved ones, which were and are selflessly borne in the defense of their fellow Americans and our free republic.
This spirit of self-sacrifice is rarely evidenced by far too many of the elected officials who will publicly eulogize these same fallen patriots and extend condolences to their families and loved ones. While exhorting others to emulate the example of those who made the ultimate sacrifice, these disingenuous politicians refuse to risk an ounce of political capital—not by opposing public sentiment—but by supporting it in the defense of our national security. Why? Because they fear alienating major corporations and their own party leaders.
While currently occurring primarily in “Blue States,” abetting communist Chinese subnational incursions into our states has been a bipartisan disgrace—and this is despite the bipartisan warnings of the military, intelligence, and law enforcement communities.
The complicit politicians’ reasoning is as follows: using taxpayer money to subsidize CCP-linked businesses locating in states will provide jobs and boost the economy of not only the local populace but also the profits of these companies’ American corporate partners. In sum, having failed to implement the necessary fiscal and free market policies to produce domestic economic growth, these politicians have latched onto these Chinese-linked companies as an electoral lifeline. Apparently, these politicians think the public believes a job is a job and will not care about the use of their tax dollars to import CCP-linked companies into our backyard.
To wit: my home state of Michigan, which during World War II was rightly lauded with the name “The Arsenal of Democracy.” The “greatest generation” of Michiganians not only fought in foreign fields, they toiled in machine shops’ and factories’ floors to produce the armaments needed not only for our forces but for our allies as well. One shining example of American industrial and military might was the Ford Motor Company’s Willow Run Facility (Air Force Plant 31).
As the Detroit Historical Society records, Willow Run was built in 1941 with $200,000,000 investment by the federal government. At its wartime peak,
…Willow Run was able to achieve remarkable production rates. At its peak in 1944, it produced a B-24 [bomber aircraft] every hour. By 1945, it was able to produce 70 percent of its B-24s in two nine-hour shifts, with pilots and crew members sleeping on 1,300 cots as they waited for the B-24s to roll off the assembly line. The Ford Motor Company eventually produced half of their 18,000 total B-24s at Willow Run.
Yet, over time, even as the threats to America ebbed and flowed, morphed and intensified, Willow Run ebbed in the minds of policymakers and the public. In 1953, Willow Run changed hands by lease and, ultimately, by deed from Ford to General Motors; and by 2010, Willow Run plant became a casualty of GM’s bankruptcy proceeding:
Most of the plant was demolished in 2014 but a 175,000 foot portion was offered to the Yankee Air Museum, housed in a hangar until a 2004 fire. After successful fundraising, the Museum reopened in 2017 in the historic building.
“The American Center for Mobility claimed the remainder of the massive site and in 2018 opened a proving ground and research facility for self-driving cars, the only one in Michigan and one of ten in the U.S., as designated by the U.S. Dept. of Transportation.
What is of note to the present discussion is this: back in 1941, the U.S. government expended taxpayer dollars to an American corporation to provide employment in making armaments for the defense of our nation. Today, state governments are expending taxpayer dollars to CCP-linked companies that use the mantra of “jobs” to deflect from the potential to undermine our national security. All this for a talking point how “[Politician Name] Created [X Number of] Jobs.” (Sadly, the economic mendacity of this message remains lost upon far too many of our citizenry.)
And the offending politicians show no signs of slowing in their feckless endangering of our national security. As the Daily Caller’s Nick Pope reports:
Michigan Democrats shot down an effort to significantly expand the vetting process for China-tied companies seeking to cash in on state incentives earlier in May.
Republican lawmakers in both chambers of the state’s legislature pushed budget amendments that would have prohibited the use of state funds to subsidize corporations originating from adversarial countries like China, but neither amendment made it into the budgets that passed on May 9 and May 15. House and Senate Democrats leveraged their control of each chamber to shoot down both amendments.
The reason for the partisan divide is the support of the democratic administration of Governor Gretchen Whitmer for “Gotion, a company looking to build a subsidized facility in the Grand Rapids area… The state announced in October 2022 that it would be providing Gotion with incentives worth $715 million to attract its $2.4 billion factory to Michigan.”
This is despite the fact that Gotion
…is tied to China and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) via its parent company, Gotion High-Tech. The Daily Caller News Foundation has reported extensively on the company’s links to China and the CCP, which include Gotion High-Tech’s employment of more than 900 CCP members as of 2022 and the fact that a visiting delegation of CCP officials set up a talent recruitment work station at Gotion’s California headquarters in 2017.
This is not a one-off by the wholly Democrat-controlled Michigan legislature, who, according to state Senator Jonathan Lindsey (R-17):
Governor Whitmer and the Democrats in Michigan are so married to this idea of taking Michigan taxpayer dollars and giving them to these corporations with ties to China, they refuse to budge. Last year they voted against preventing tax dollars from supporting child slave labor in China. This year they voted against reviews and limitations on those dollars flowing toward our global adversaries. What they’re doing is absolutely wrong for the people of Michigan.
As Michigan Senate minority leader Aric Nesbitt (R-20) further points out, “It’s shocking to watch the Democrat majority in Michigan hand over hundreds of millions in tax dollars from struggling Michigan families to multinational corporations that pledge allegiance to the Chinese Communist Party in their corporate documents.”
Yet, what of the Ford Motor Company, the quintessentially American corporation that was a major artery pumping munitions and materiel through the heart of the Arsenal of Democracy and into our military and allies’ hands? Like the Willow Run plant, Ford has another project seeking public subsidies. Unlike the Willow Run plant, however:
…Ford’s licensing deal with CATL, a Chinese battery manufacturer, has also drawn scrutiny. Ford planned to open a facility in [Michigan] – with the help of state incentives in excess of $1.5 billion – where it would manufacture batteries using CATL’s technology and know-how, but the company has since scaled down its planned factory, according to CNBC.
Perhaps it is an elected official and Navy veteran, State Representative Andrew Beeler (R-64), who, being well versed in the self-sacrifice made by our men and women in uniform and their families, so well expressed his consternation and concerns:
I didn’t spend years in the Navy pushing back against the Chinese Communist Party in the South China Sea only to come to the Michigan Legislature and give them government handouts… But House Democrats voted to let hostile foreign powers keep spreading influence and gathering intelligence on Michigan taxpayers’ dime.
Given the bipartisan opposition to spending taxpayer money to subsidize CCP-linked companies, one might be tempted to chalk this up to a case of imbecilic political hacks cutting off their nose to spite their face and hoping no one notices. Granted, it would not be the first time. Yet this is far worse. These useful elected idiots are spending taxpayer dollars to buy the CCP the razor that barbaric regime will use to cut our throat. That this is happening in Michigan could well constitute a final—suicidal—indignity to the arsenal of Democracy.
That this is happening at all constitutes an unconscionable affront to the citizen-soldiers who gave their last full measure of devotion for us.