U.S. tax dollars for China nukes

by Joseph Farah

What would you say if I told you U.S. taxpayers are on the hook for at least $5 billion to help the totalitarian Communist Chinese government build 70 new nuclear plants in the next 13 years?

Would you believe it?

Would you say it is impossible?

Would you wonder why you've never heard any debate about this in our country?

Unfortunately, it is all very true. More than two years ago, the Export-Import Bank, an agency of your federal government, gave preliminary approval for a $5 billion subsidy to the China National Nuclear Corporation, an arm of the Communist government.
Why would the U.S. government do such a thing?

Actually, it is just what the Export-Import Bank does all the time – give your money to foreign governments and businesses as a way of subsidizing U.S. exports. Remarkably, we call this "free trade" in 2007. It's "free" because you pick up the tab.

In this case, the U.S. government is not interested in keeping jobs in the U.S. It is interested in helping to procure a lucrative contract for a multinational corporation called Westinghouse, which wants to be involved in building some of those 70 nuke plants in China.

To truly appreciate what a profoundly bad, not to mention unconstitutional, idea this is, consider the breadth of the political opposition to the plan.

Those opposed in Congress include Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, on the right, and Sen. Bernie Sanders, socialist of Vermont, on the left.

Understand that by subsidizing China's nuclear power industry we are also subsidizing – and approving – China's nuclear weapons industry. China has a long history of spreading nuclear weapons technology throughout the world.

CNNC is the Chinese government agency that oversees nuclear power and nuclear weapons. Beijing makes no distinction between peaceful uses of nuclear power and military uses.

As Timothy Carney reported in Human Events last month, "CNNC is a known serial proliferator of nuclear weapons materials. In the late 1990s, the U.S. intelligence agencies discovered that the CNNC had sold 5,000 ring magnets to Pakistan's A.Q. Khan Research Laboratory. Later, the CIA found that the CNNC sold Pakistan high-temperature furnaces. Both the furnaces and the ring magnets are crucial tools used in enriching uranium to produce fissionable – i.e., weapons-grade – uranium. Shortly after these sales, Pakistan test-fired its first nuclear weapon."

What's going on here?

What kind of madmen are running our country?

Why would we give 10 cents of U.S. taxpayer money to the Chinese government for any purpose – let alone the building of nuclear power plants that will have military and strategic value to a country that has already threatened us with nuclear annihilation?

Why do we need an Export-Import Bank giving away U.S. taxpayer dollars to any foreign entity?

I hope you have not become so desensitized to the irrationality of government that this report doesn't affect you in your heart and soul.

Something is terribly wrong with U.S. government policy. It's time for some sunshine. It's time to engage the people in this representative form of government. It's time for open debates out in public, not behind closed doors and in secret.

You killed the amnesty plan.

You killed the Dubai Ports deal.

You killed the nomination of Harriet Miers to the U.S. Supreme Court.

We can make a difference when we try.

It's time to make that kind of difference when it comes to hopelessly, misguided giveaways to tyrannical foreign governments.