House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's COMPETES Act is being pushed as a way to make America stronger on the world stage and enhance the country's ability to compete against hostile nations such as China, but a review of the bill's lengthy text by the conservative stalwarts in the Republican Study Committee reveals an entirely different reality.
Suggesting that "CONCEDES Act" is a better title for the legislation, RSC Chairman Jim Banks (R-IN) and his team found numerous provisions that would in fact benefit the Chinese Communist Party — not to mention other rival powers — and provide funding for programs that would make the United States less competitive against our foes.
Among the concerning policies the RSC found is "a new visa cap carveout program that would be even less secure than the existing visa programs that are already riddled with fraud. Shockingly, an unlimited number of members of the Chinese Communist Party are eligible to take advantage of the new visa program to carry out their malign activity here in the States." It also "fails to ban federal funding for colleges and universities that host Confucius Institutes, a tool of the Chinese Communist Party to steal our intellectual property and censor our campuses." What could go wrong?
The COMPETES Act also urges the United States to abide by the terms of the Paris Climate deal, something that "would cripple our economic output and does almost nothing to stop China’s much more rampant pollution." With the damage President Biden has done to the economy already, Americans don't need and can't take much more of his flawed and failed policies.
And if the situation surrounding the emergence of the Wuhan coronavirus and China's resistance to investigators wasn't enough of a cautionary tale against cooperation with the CCP, the COMPETES Act "directs the U.S. and the People’s Republic of China to work together and undertake ‘parallel initiatives’ on research, development, finance and deployment." China already steals U.S. research and technology, so why would it be a good idea to cooperate with them?
In addition to the above nonsense, the COMPETES Act is an exercise in wasting taxpayer dollars to the tune of "at least $250 billion." And with "no design to pay for the bill... much of it will be added to our national debt," the RSC warned. Among the programs to be created and paid for by hardworking Americans are:
- 8 billion for the UN Green Climate Fund (page 1392)
- $2 million a year in foreign aid to countries to combat climate change (page 1375)
- $22 million to investigate a residential building collapse (page 191)
- Establishes a new federal program to study plumbing (page 227)
- Establishes a Coral Reef Task Force (page 1645) and gives $6 million to the NOAA to create a National Coral Reef Management Fellowship (page 1653). In fact, it’s so focused on coral reefs that “coral reefs” is mentioned more times than the word “China.”
- Includes the Marine Mammal Research and Response Act that mandates financial and regulatory “support” to protect marine mammals.
President Biden claimed in a January 25th statement that the COMPETES Act is "legislation that will make our supply chains stronger and reinvigorate the innovation engine of our economy to outcompete China and the rest of the world for decades to come" and that "we have an opportunity to show China and the rest of the world that the 21st century will be the American century – forged by the ingenuity and hard work of our innovators, workers, and businesses."
With this highlight reel of nonsensical provisions the Republican Study Committee dug up within the lengthy bill, Biden's claims just don't jive with reality. Expensive and woke, friendly toward the Chinese Communist Party, and full of nonsense that won't strengthen America's position in the world, the COMPETES Act appears to be another trojan horse aimed at institutionalizing the radical left's priorities before those of the American people.