It's now at Biden's doorstep. You know, the guy who was supposed to be in charge of making sure the Stimulus money was being spent on the up-and-up. Between this obvious pay-for-play scam and the Fast and Furious/Gunrunner scandal, how soon until the Dems seriously start considering running a primary challenger against this corrupt (or is it incompetent/clueless?) President?
A couple of things. The White House wanting to put pressure for a fast track payout is no big deal to me. One could state they didn't want the deal held up to the light, but also in politics expediency can create a lot of goodwill. So far I see nothing in the emails that hurt Obama at all. The second thing is odd in that the executives from Solyndra have opted not to show up for the capitol hill hearings. Their excuse doesn't wash and that does raise a small red flag to me.
It's hard to imagine a company like this burning through $500M so quickly. I think Biden is mostly an honest guy. He's owned by the credit card companies, tho.
When are folks going to focus on the real issue? It is not a mad attempt to discover if there was or wasn't "corruption". It is the (mostly left wing, but all stripes fall for it) fundamental falsehood that politicians or government officials can do a better job of picking "winners" in a competitive envirnoment than those who do it for a living. The idea is insane in theory and even worse in practice. The real scandal here is not corruption. The real scandal is the Administration shouldn't have been trying to pick a "winner". Not their job. And it all comes back to an adminstration that is inexperienced, and frankly, just plain "stupid".
I disagree. The administration structured the bankruptcy so the private investors (Kaiser and another bundler) were first in line to recoup their assets. The $535 million of taxpayer money has apparently disappeared as well, and I think asking where that money went, and why the private investors are first in line, will lead to corruption/graft. I wonder how much of that money ended up in union coffers, and even back in Obama's re-election fund. Plus, in 1/09, the Bush DoE unanimously voted to not process the loan based on OMB recommendations, yet 4 months later, and after multiple WH visits by Solyndra officials/investors, the Obama DoE approved the loan. This is a big 'effing deal, as Joe Biden might say.
Given that this program existed prior to this Administration (Soylendra applied for the loan in 2007), I'm not sure the 'blame' for the program can be laid at the feet of this administration alone. I also think the 'picking winners' meme is a little inaccurate. It was a loan, not an investment. barfo
Dude, that's what commercial bankers do. They pick winners. If they fail they go out of business. Or, if big enough, go to DC to get bailed out.
I am not saying don't investigate. I am saying in the longer view, it is fairly irrelevant. If the mainstream view agreed that pols and officials are not the right folks to pick winners, that the notion was a typical excessive government overreach, then the Executive and Legislative branches would have limited rights and ability to pick winners. If they lose the power to do something, the corruption fades.
How about "not pick losers that can't pay back their loans"? I don't see a big corruption deal sprouting up here--individuals giving $5k to $25k for a Presidential candidate isn't really that much money in the grand scheme of things--but I agree with Masbee that the bigger issue is whether tax dollars (or dollars borrowed in the name of the American people) should be used to invest in private enterprise. (And, yes, a loan is an investment even if it's not equity. There are expected returns and opportunity costs involved.) Ed O.
How about college loans? Are you against the government making those loans? Because that's 'picking winners' in exactly the same sense. We have a national interest in alternative energy. It makes sense for us to invest in it. The alternative is to have a purely government operation, where government employees do the research, build the factories, etc. The alternative is not to sit and do nothing. Partly due to these government loans, we've got some solar companies in the US now. If we'd done nothing, all of the solar companies would be Chinese instead of just most of them. How would that have been a better outcome? barfo
I have an interest in alternative energy that makes sense. Photovotaics do not make sense. At a seminar put on by the PV industry, they admitted that the payback for PV is about 100 years (at current energy rates) without a Federal Subsidy. When I see PV on a person's roof, I sometimes laugh that the people there are fools, or sometimes I want to cry because I am having to pick up part of the tab for them to save money on their energy bill. How about an alternative where the government provide research grants for private industry to the research? If memory serves me, I think Bush (at the end of his term) declined to loan money to Solyndra. Go Blazers
That remains to be seen. In any case, it isn't like the government is going all-in on solar energy. Government is looking at lots of different technologies. When was that seminar? Part of the reason Solyndra went belly up is because the cost of solar decreased by 42% just in the past year. Things change. Government is doing that too. barfo
You think like a lefty don't you? "the only options are deep govt involvment a, or deep govt involvement b." You guys always forget about option A+: Set the groundrules for a fair game, then get out of the way and watch things happen. The "solution" was a hefty "dirty" energy tax. I would have an energy tax that is based on two components: carbon emmissions and air pollutants. The more pollutants, the higher the tax. To nuture the alternative energy industries of solar, wind, wave, geothermal, etc., they would be tax exempt and that exemption guaranteed by law for many years. In fact, this is a policy I have supported for decades.
No, I listed another option, sit and do nothing. I reject that option. Man, you think like a lefty, don't you? Instead of picking winners, you want to pick losers, and tax them into the ground. Well, that sounds just fine by me I don't have a problem with that policy. However, note it isn't something that the administration can unilaterally do. In fact, given the current Congress, it isn't even remotely possible. So I don't blame the administration for doing what they could, instead of wishing upon a star. barfo
LOL barfo. The govt. picks losers and taxes the winners into the ground. Add to that the notion it can create wealth out of thin air by printing money and borrowing like it's going out of style -- you have a recipe for the new normal.
Wrong. Instead of extra taxes on, say income, taxes are assessed on an externality - pollution. Something that is now lightly taxed in our economy. In the U.S. we have a progressive income tax. If you are in the energy business or use a lot of energy in your line of work you aren't penalized for your pollution, but if successful, you pay a lot of income tax. Income is "punished" or in your lingo, income producers are picked as "losers". If, as a public policy decision, the government chooses to tax income less, and tax polluting energy a lot more, than those in the energy business will see their taxes shift. Less on income. More on pollution. Those in the energy business that are in position to reduce their pollution the fastest will pay less in taxes than those that continue to pollute.
Like I said, I like your plan. I've got no problem with it whatsoever. But if you go asking why Obama didn't implement your plan instead of what he's currently doing, the answer is simple: he does not have the power to enact your plan. barfo
