Another day and another set of layoffs at a Department of Energy-backed solar company and an electric-car maker funded with stimulus dollars. Yet the President wants to double down on green energy.
First Solar, a solar energy company that received a $1.46 billion loan guarantee from the Department of Energy, announced Monday it will lay off 2,000 workers worldwide. In December, First Solar laid off 100 employees at a Santa Clara , Calif., plant.
The DOE has committed the loan to a project in Riverside County, Calif., expected to create a whopping 15 permanent jobs and 550 construction jobs.
Contrast this boondoggle with the privately funded Keystone XL pipeline, delayed by President Obama over alleged environmental concerns, which would create 20,000 jobs initially and perhaps 10 times that over the life of the project. It will bring 800,000 barrels of oil daily to U.S. refineries, whether the sun shines or not.
If a Chief of State looted his country’s treasury to enrich his friends and the people who helped him get his job by giving the cast directly from the public coffers, there would be a Revolution. Let his friends pose as ‘businessmen’ and give them government grants, loans, and loan guarantees for hopeless businesses – the type doomed to fail from the start, and nobody asks any questions.
Isn’t repeating the same thing over and over again, expecting different results, the definition of insanity?
He doesn’t expect different results; he
expects his supporters to get more
taxpayer money.