Did You Get "Wind" Of This? More Economic Stimulus Failures

I came across an interesting report out of the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research recently. It was in regard to billions of dollars the Obama administration has given to wind power-centric companies from the failed $800 billion economic stimulus program from 2009.

I will not go into the trade offs between natural gas, petroleum and green energy technologies, that would take up too much time in a blog post like this. But consider some of the factual findings laid out in the report:

• $2.6 billion of taxpayer money was given to just four wind power companies as a result of the economic stimulus package.
• This $2.6 billion was not government backed loans like solar panel maker Solyndra received (which screwed up so royally in so many ways that the American taxpayer will never recover the $530 million that went to back the Solyndra loan). The $2.6 billion was apparently tax free grants, not loans.
• With the American economy in tatters and America unemployment running extremely high, someone in the Obama administration thought it would be a good idea to give American taxpayer stimulus money to two foreign companies: the Spanish energy company Iberdrola received $1 billion in grants, and German giant E.ON received $542 million. How this would stimulate the domestic economy is a mystery.
• Since Iberdrola's 2010 annual report shows that the company had sales worth over 30 billion euros in 2010, it had tripled its profits over the past ten years, and has almost 94 billion euros worth of assets, it is a mystery why the American taxpayer handed over $1 billion to this obviously non-start up, established, and profitable foreign company. 
• Could the reason for this stupidity be related to the fact that four high ranking executives and directors of Iberdrola, Brent Beerley, Daniel Nicholson, Jennifer Bradford, and Carolyn Plemons, had made significant contributions to Obama's 2008 Presidential campaign? http://fundrace.huffingtonpost.com/neighbors.php?type=emp_or_occ&emp=Iberdrola 
• E.ON is not much different, with about 112 billion euros in revenue and about 152 billion euros worth of assets in 2011. Why the American taxpayer gives this foreign company tax free grants is also a mystery.
• A third company that received a tax free grant is Terra-Gen, which is building a wind farm in California. Since this project and the tax free grant that supports it is only creating about about 50 permanent jobs, the per job cost (amount of the grant divided by the number of permanent jobs) comes out to about $9 million per job. Tough to save the economy and reduce unemployment in the country when it costs $9 million per job to do so.
• The report points out that while Obama wants to eliminate all tax subsidies and favors to the oil and natural gas industry. these benefits are only worth $2.8 billion annually, just $200 million more than what has been wasted on just four wind companies.
• That $2.8 billion is spread among the 14,000 oil and gas companies operating in the United States, companies that have increased their sector employment by over 150,000 new jobs in the past five years, companies that already employ untold hundreds of thousands of American workers, and companies that contribute mightily to the economic growth and well being of the economy and the country.

Now, I am not saying oil and gas companies should not get special tax benefits form the American taxpayer and I am not saying that green technologies should not be encouraged. But I do object to giving foreign companies tax free grants of our tax dollars in the guise of economic stimulus, I do object to politicians giving taxpayer money out as a repayment of a favorable political campaign donation, and I do object to an administration which has failed repeatedly when investing our tax dollars in private sector green energy companies (Solyndra, Beacon, Spectra, Evergreen, Fisker, Resla, etc.).

As we have discussed many times before, the Obama administration has no concept of how to think strategically or to problem solve. Giving out taxpayer money to campaign funders and randomly choosing private companies, both domestic and foreign, without the context of expert opinions or a strategic plan will almost always fail.  Solyndra, Beacon, et al are proof of this incompetence.

The only way to solve our nation's energy problem is to execute Steps 23, 24, and 25 from "Love My Country, Loathe My Government." These steps would implement an expert panel/commission of American experts from a wide variety of energy related disciplines. This panel would put together a short term and long term energy and global warming strategic plan for the nation that the Obama administration and the previous Presidential administrations since the oil crises of the 1970s have been unable and unwilling to do. 

This non-partisan commission would look at the problem of energy from a root cause analysis perspective, not from a campaign donator or a vanity pick of politicians perspective. It would have total transparency in its workings and solutions so that the nation would understand what, why, when, and how we would be implementing the strategic energy plan and solution.

A real solution by experts with a real chance of success. Details of what this solution might look like can be found in "Love My Country, Loathe My Government" and at the following blog post: http://www.loathemygovernment.blogspot.com/2012/02/united-states-of-purple-presidency_09.html

No more hot air from our politicians on energy. They have had almost 40 years to resolve our energy solution and have failed miserably. Now is the time to get smart Americans involved in resolving this crisis, a set of Americans that does not involve our political class.



We invite all readers of this blog to visit our new website, "The United States Of Purple," at:

http://www.unitedstatesofpurple.com/

The United States of Purple is a new grass roots approach to filling the office of President of The United States by focusing on the restoration of freedom in the United States, focusing on problem solving skills and results vs. personal political enrichment, and imposing term limits on all future Federal politicians. No more red states, no more blue states, just one United States Of America under the banner of Purple.

The United States Of Purple's website also provides you the formal opportunity to sign a petition to begin the process of implementing a Constitutional amendment to impose fixed term limits on all Federally elected politicians. Only by turning out the existing political class can we have a chance of addressing and finally resolving the major issues of or times.

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http://www.reason.com/
http://www.repealamendment/