Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer has been trying to impose a corporate welfare plot on the good people of Mundy Township, near Flint. They don’t want it and President Trump may have ridden to their rescue in his March 4 address to Congress. 

At issue is the Creating Helpful Incentives to Produce Semiconductors and Science Act (CHIPS Act), signed by President Joe Biden and supported by Soviet-inspired central planners everywhere. A California-based semiconductor firm reportedly wants to move to Mundy–but only if they get CHIPS money. Whitmer has already asked Trump for some CHIPS loot, but he doesn’t appear to be cooperating.

“Your CHIPS Act is a horrible, horrible thing,” Trump told Congress. “We give hundreds of billions of dollars and it doesn’t mean a thing.” 

“You should get rid of the CHIPS Act and whatever’s left over, Mr. Speaker, you should use it to reduce debt or any other reason you want to,” concluded the president. 

As Trump noted, corporate welfare has a “horrible, horrible” habit of failure. It is also unfair, forcing all taxpayers–rich and poor alike–to subsidize what lefties love to call “one percenters.” It’s the sort of program that would put honest people in jail if it wasn’t done by the government. And because of the political pull needed to land such subsidies, corporate welfare is an obvious avenue for potential political corruption. 

As part of his denunciation of the CHIPS Act, Trump rattled off $1.7 trillion in high tech investment in America announced just since he took office. The firms included Apple, Softbank, OpenAI and Oracle. 

And he saved the real dagger for the end.

Go Ad-Free, Get Content, Go Premium Today - $1 Trial

“And just yesterday, Taiwan Semiconductor, the biggest in the world’s most powerful in the world, has a tremendous amount — 97% of the market — announced a $165 billion investment to build the most powerful chips on Earth right here in the U.S.A,” he boasted. “And we’re not giving them any money.” [emphasis added]. 

Mundy Township, population 14,800, is home to nice homes and small farms. It is next door to Flint Bishop Airport, one of the state’s busiest air terminals. That’s plenty busy enough for the community with the official motto: “Urban appeal with a country feel.” 

But all that peace and quiet was too much for Whitmer. 

Back in April Michigan government’s corporate welfare fund awarded $9.2 million to the Flint & Genesee Economic Alliance (the Genesee County corporate welfare slush fund) so the latter could begin developing a “mega site” in Mundy Township. Then in May the governor announced they were upping the Mundy spending by $250 million so the FGEA could begin buying up land for the 1,000 acre site. 

Go Ad-Free, Get Content, Go Premium Today - $1 Trial

In September, State Sen. John Cherry, D-Flint, told ABC-12 that Western Digital Technologies, a California semiconductor firm, had “put an application in with the CHIPS Act Office to put a semiconductor factory at the site here in Mundy Township.” Sources told the Detroit News the CHIPS funding could be critical to the deal and that Western Digital had “reported spending $15,757 lobbying Michigan officeholders over the first seven months of 2024.”

“Residents who oppose the project believe it was conceived without enough public input and it would destroy the rural or suburban residential character of the land,” reported ABC-12 in June. “They have turned out in droves to voice their disapproval.”

The droves protested Tonya Ketzler, the Democratic supervisor of Mundy Township. In November, the droves replaced Ketzler with Republican Jennifer Arrand Stainton. Stainton won by just 500 votes, and according to ABC-12 she “staunchly opposes” the megasite and “ran on a platform of opposition” to it. 

Busy urban and suburban communities will want in on the $1.7 trillion in new manufacturing investment Trump says is headed for America. Mundy isn’t one of them and the taxes of Michigan citizens and all Americans shouldn’t be used to force the issue. 

But stay tuned because Whitmer wants to be obeyed. Industrial wind and solar energy projects, a wasteful and needless scar on the landscape, have also been one of her favorite federal subsidy catchers. After uppity locals began passing ordinances to shoot down wind and solar, Whitmer signed a November 2023 law to eliminate their control over such decisions. 

Opposition to green energy boondoggles are another issue where Michigan locals are on the same side with their president. He’s on the right track with the CHIPS Act as well, and should speed up the train.