Establishment Republicans and the big business lobby are deathly afraid of the Tea Party movement and the politicians it supports.
The reason is simple: the limited government grassroots movement threatens both the politicians that refuse to meaningfully address the growth of government and the big businesses that rely on government action for revenue.
Out of this concern, Republican leadership including Speaker of The House John Boehner (R-OH) are directly challenging the Tea Party.
My commentary posted on The Blaze, “The Battle for the Republican Party is Being Waged,” describes the fight between the Tea Party and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce that is backing establishment Republicans in primaries in the 2014 midterm elections.
General Electric is featured in the commentary as an example of a company that is benefiting from big government.
In 2013, the Department of Energy (DOE) continued to shower GE with taxpayer money. The Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) branch of the DOE awarded GE with just over $11 million in grants to conduct basic research on projects ranging from batteries to natural gas vehicles to wind turbine research this year. These funds were in addition to other grants from prior years.
That’s not all. The DOE is funding development of new vehicle technologies through another source – Advanced Vehicle Power Technology Alliance – and GE’s getting a $1.7 million piece of the $45 million pie. Caterpillar, Ford, 3M Company and General Motors are also cashing in on DOE’s generosity.
Finally, GE is getting about another $7 million from an $84 million bucket of taxpayer cash just announced in November, for two research projects related to carbon capture technologies to reduce carbon dioxide emissions from coal-fired power plants.
With our country’s debt over $17 trillion, it’s outrageous that our taxpayer money is being given to profitable companies.
Funding profitable companies is wrong and armed with this information, I’m confident the Tea Party will beat Chamber supported politicians in the upcoming Republican primaries.
