(Overlaet)
Even in the process of trying to sensationalize Department of Energy loans to electric car manufacturer Fisker, ABC News reported that although Fisker's cars were currently being manufactured in Finland, the government money was being spent—and creating jobs—in the United States.
Rep. Tim Murphy (R-PA), though, wants us to believe otherwise, claiming that:
"I don't know how strongly they can isolate that (DOE funding) because … Fisker otherwise would have to invest their own private money into the R&D, the research and development and design and engineering for this vehicle that is going to be made in Finland."
Murphy's logic is that Fisker may only be spending government money in the U.S., but if the company didn't have that government money, it wouldn't be able to spend its other money on manufacturing in Finland. This is basically the kind of fungibility argument David Waldman has described Republicans making on a host of other issues, in which, for instance, "if a company provides health care benefits for its employees, and the plan they pay for includes coverage for abortion, the company becomes ineligible for the normal federal tax deductions and credits that are the usual reward for providing benefits," because that counts, under the fungibility logic, as taxpayer money going to abortion.
David has explained the dangers of allowing such logic to take root, since Republicans will certainly use it to target a huge range of issues. And, as in Murphy's case, the logic will only be applied to expenditures they don't like for other reasons. When it's an expenditure they like, fungibility will not apply. As here:
Murphy, however, has backed financing for the Westinghouse Electric, which owns facilities in countries including Sweden, Belgium, France, Great Britain, Spain, Germany and the Ukraine and is headquartered in Murphy's district. In May, Murphy introduced legislation that would provide loan guarantees up to $450 million to Westinghouse for the construction of two new nuclear power plants in the United States.
Loans to a small electric car manufacturer? Well, that money might as well be going directly to Finland, by Murphy logic. A similar type of funding for a giant corporation to build nuclear plants? Yes, please, and never mind that corporation's overseas facilities.