The Biden administration is making a massive, unprecedented corporate welfare loan to a private company making car batteries, the Energy Department announced on Thursday.

“The U.S. Department of Energy’s Loan Programs Office today announced a conditional commitment for a loan of up to $9.2 billion to BlueOval for the construction of three manufacturing plants to produce batteries for Ford Motor Company’s future Ford and Lincoln electric vehicles.”

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BlueOval, like its parent companies, Ford and Korean company SK On, is a for-profit company that could have lined up financing in the free market. The taxpayer-backed loans, though, are at a lower rate than BlueOval could get in the free market.

Why should the federal government be the lender of first resort to boost the profit of a major Korean company and a major U.S. company? Because the cars they are subsidizing are plug-in electrics.

This is, of course, an acknowledgment that plug-in electric cars are inferior to regular cars, which run on gasoline.

Another reason to subsidize private businesses is to increase political control over private businesses.

If you’re wondering why the Biden administration would be so motivated to back this enterprise, check out this paragraph from the Detroit News:

“The announcement also comes ahead of pivotal contract negotiations between the United Auto Workers and the Detroit Three automakers. The unionization of joint ventures and battery plants like BlueOval SK — especially in the U.S. South, a historically tough-to-organize region — is one of the UAW’s top priorities.”

This is corporate welfare. President Joe Biden has been consistent in his support of corporate welfare, especially green-energy corporate welfare. He believes that the government should subsidize big business in the expectation that big business will pass some of that subsidy down to workers and consumers.

You could call it trickle-down economics. Some call it “picking winners and losers.” The problem with this term is that Biden has a horrible track record with picking winners.

Check out the last time Biden announced a historic Energy Department loan for green energy.

Biden said, “It is so important we invest in Solyndra” “to power our way to a much brighter tomorrow.” Solyndra, Biden promised, was “leading America to a new clean-energy future.”

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Of course, Biden was wrong back then, as was the Department of Energy. The company was a dud.

Maybe this Ford-Korea joint venture won’t be a dud. But if it is promising, you would think they could line up good private-sector financing.