Image Credit: Dylan Ashe / CC BY-SA 2.0 , via Wikimedia Commons & WMrapids / Public Domain
The Tennessee Conservative [By Paula Gomes] –
Companies worth many billions of dollars are set to receive billions more in grants and loans for doing business in Tennessee. FedEx will get a $2 million grant, and Ford Motor Company has been conditionally approved for a $9.2 billion loan.
The economic development agency for Memphis and Shelby County, aka EDGE, voted to give FedEx $2 million in grants on Wednesday. EDGE board members refuse to talk about the board’s decisions with news organizations. FOX13 reports that they have repeatedly tried to get answers from EDGE only to be consistently rebuffed.
The approval of Wednesday afternoon’s grant was made alongside the approval for EDGE’s budget during their meeting. The grant, listed among other items, was not even mentioned during the meeting.
Among the un-elected board members are two who were appointed to represent the interests of local government: Memphis City Councilman Edmund Ford and Shelby County Commissioner Henri Brooks. However, neither have been to a meeting all year.
On Thursday, the U.S. Department of Energy offered a loan of up to $9.2 billion to Ford Motor Company for their Blue Oval SK manufacturing facilities in Tennessee and Kentucky, the largest single federal investment ever made in the automotive industry.
Located near Memphis, the six-acre Blue Oval City is currently under construction in Haywood County, Tennessee. The plant will produce Ford’s all-electric F-150 Lightning pickup as well as electric vehicle battery components for Ford and Lincoln.
Scheduled to begin production in 2025, Ford has promised at least six-thousand jobs to people in West Tennessee, with more to come later. They will be partnering with SK Innovation, a Korean company, on production of batteries.
The Department of Energy said in a press release, “Expanding domestic production of American-made batteries is critical to reaching the Biden-Harris Administration’s goals to have EVs represent at least 50% of all new car sales in the U.S. by 2030, reach net-zero electricity by 2035 and a net-zero economy by 2050.”
About the Author: Paula Gomes is a Tennessee resident and reporter for The Tennessee Conservative. You can reach Paula at paula@tennesseeconservativenews.com.
5 Responses
This needs to stop. The real beneficiaries are landowners and companies like Gov. Lee’s HVAC company. Average people are hurt because costs increase. Then the governments want to increase taxes to build “affordable housing”.
Go9v. Lee has a fondness for helping China/Globalist cabal. He’s on their list of favorites!
This is a good article that needs to be seen by many. Laundering of taxpayer money to multi-billion dollar companies and sports franchises must stop. The $9.2 billion dollar loan mentioned in this article however, is no where near the largest of its kind within the automotive industry. In 2009 the federal government gave General Motors $49.5 billion to recover from bankruptcy. Stockholders took it on the chin, were wiped out, and bondholders were given an equity stake in the new organization. Oh, and don’t forget the labor unions were given a 20% stake in the new company as well. Taxpayer money laundered to BIG LABOR…
Small businesses have never received the level of support given to large corporations. They apparently are office holders’ special interest, not small business & working taxpayers.
Just more Gov. Hand outs to the Billionaires at the Tax payer expense.