Obama wasteful non winners

The solar plant to nowhere

Ed Lasky

Evergreen Solar stock is plunging this week into a black hole of probable bankruptcy. The losers - aside from shareholders and employees - are the taxpayers from Massachusetts. Their government, just in the last few years, received $58 million in taxpayer subsidies. This slug of money was given to Evergreen to get them to open a factory on a former military base in the town of Devens. Within two years of the opening, Evergreen closed that factory and shifted operations to China. Now it looks like even that move is coming up a cropper as Evergreen seems headed to bankruptcy court.

As I wrote in "Obama's Solar Nightmare," this subsidy was pushed by Governor Deval Patrick over opposition that it was a waste of money during a time of economic weakness. Patrick is a close friend of Barack Obama's. President Obama has been pushing the same wasteful green schemes since he assumed office. For example, a huge chunk of the stimulus money went to aid (loans, grants, subsidies) green or renewable energy ventures whose investors all too often overlap with donors to Obama and other Democrats. Many of those - like ethanol plants before them - will go belly-up as well.

As Europe goes broke, the lavish subsidies given to boost the solar industry are being slashed. The companies that saw taxpayer money showered on them like manna from heaven are faltering. Chinese solar companies are also sliding. On the same day that Evergreen warned of bankruptcy, Chinese-based Trina Solar announced that the head of its audit committee resigned, sending its own shares sharply lower. They are down 50% in a year.

Revelations regarding accounting shenanigans have been shellacking Chinese companies the last few months so this latest news will send even more shudders through investors in Chinese solar company shares. New York Times columnist Tom Friedman has China wanderlust. He has written a series of columns extolling China and its command and control economy and government as being a role model for America. He has also been an ardent proponent of solar power and green schemes. Will Tom Friedman now write a mea culpa?

In fact, as more facts come to light the miracles of China are more and more appearing to be the work of public relations flaks in the West and the "journalists" who buy what they are selling. Progressives are being proven wrong. Yet, Barack Obama plows ahead, throwing more money at wasteful green schemes as he gives our money to his donors and allies.

Unfortunately we -and our children and their children-will be paying the price for their (and especially Barack Obama's) mistakes for decades to come

And the damage will be much more severe than $58 million.

The media harped on the so-called Bridge to Nowhere (never built, by the way). Will they ever report on the billions and billions wasted by Barack Obama on foolish pie-in-the sky energy ventures.

Yet, in the face of all these failures, the Obama administration is addicted to solar spending. The Department of Energy-run by Obama appointee Steven Chu (who wants gas to cost $10 a gallon) - just offered to guarantee $4.5 billion in loan guarantees to First Solar.

Nothing succeeds like excess. If liberals find their spending binge has failed they then proceed to think that there has just not been enough spending so they double, triple, and quadruple down. We are the ones that pay for the losing bets. And they will lose.