Good old Oz! You can always depend on them to do the common sense thing eventually.
Under former PM Julia Gillard (whom I still retain certain personal liking for despite her politics), Labour's governing coalition was dependent on appeasing the Greens and other progressive fascists, who insisted on massive government programs based on global warming, including a hugely unpopular carbon tax and onerous regulations on energy creation. Just like the one's President Obama's EPA is putting in place here, this resulted in a huge surge in energy and fuel prices with an accompanying rise in the price of food and goods.
Australian PM Tony Abbot and the conservative Liberal coalition (yes, in Australia they still understand what the word 'liberal' really means) campaigned on repealing the carbon tax and today announced that they are slashing the budget for the remaining 'climate change' programs by 90%, from $5.75 billion this year to $500 million, over the next four years.
The Labour and Green members of Australia's senate are stopping repeal of the carbon tax so far,but the arrival of new senators in July will likely change that.
I love this quote from Tony Abbot, who referred to the carbon tax as "an act of economic vandalism."
“You can’t trust (Labor) anywhere near an economy.”
True enough, and Australians have only to look back at Labour's dismal record during the Rudd/Gillard years to see it.
Remember back in 2010 when President Obama showed up in shirtsleeves in Kansas City to tout another one of his stimulus recipients?
“Come see what’s going on at Smith Electric," the president said, inspecting a table full of bright green truck batteries in what was once a maintenance hangar for TWA. "I think they’re going to be hard-pressed to tell you that you’re not better off than you would be if we hadn’t made the investments in this plant.”
Ummm, better off? Not exactly:
Despite $32 million in federal stimulus funds and status as one of Obama's favorite "green" companies, the firm has halted production, having built just 439 of the promised 510 vehicles.
It has also left a trail of broken promises and unpaid bills.
Smith created just a quarter of the jobs it initially promised the state of Missouri it would create in return for $1.4 million in tax credits. Meanwhile, it has also stiffed the Missouri University of Science and Technology, the state government, and a local electrical supply company, as well as its landlord, the Kansas City city government, for hundreds of thousands of dollars, according to interviews and reviews of public records by the Washington Examiner.
As of today, the company still owes $36,000 to Missouri S&T for work the university performed as a subcontractor on a U.S. Army project.
“If you’re not going to pay your [subcontractors] for satisfactory work that was performed, then it does wave a red flag whether the company was a responsible company and whether it should even be doing business with the federal government," said Scott Amey, general counsel for the nonprofit Project on Government Oversight.
Smith Electric Vehicles somehow got its hands on the stimulus dollars and all those tax grants in spite of its continued losses, $128 million since 2009. At one point, there was talk of a partnership with China's Wanxiang Group, one of the largest non-government owned companies in China but the Chinese took a second look and bailed.
They were a lot smarter than the president and the State of Missouri, both of whom were stiffed totally.
And job creation? *chuckle*
Smith made a deal with Missouri to hire at least 100 workers over a two-year period in return for up to $1.4 million in state tax credits. Their original commitment to get the tax credit was a minimum of 202 new jobs, but the Missouri Division of Workforce Development halved that goal — a change that division official Alicia Roling described in a 2011 internal email as an “unprecedented modification.”
They've created a grand total of - wait for it - 54 jobs, and now that the firm's essentially shutting down all production those will be gone soon too.
As you can read in the linked article, Smith Electric owes substantial funds to a lot of people that have never been paid, their accounting is, shall we say, sketchy and no one really seems to know where all the money went.
Sounds like another successful 'green bankruptcy' on the taxpayer's dime, and since 95% of these have had some connection to Obama campaign donors or political allies, this one probably does too if you dig deep enough.
For now, it appears as if the Bundy family have won at least a temporary victory over the Bureau of Land Management and its SWAT team.
Yesterday, Clark County Sheriff Douglas C. Gillespie announced that the BLM would end their siege of the property of cattle rancher Cliven Bundy's home.
“We had a lot of fears. Individuals being shot, trampled. Individuals being run over on the highway. So it took a lot of resources, a lot of resources to associate with this,” Assistant Clark County Sheriff Joe Lombardo said to KLAS-TV.He also stated that Bundy’s cattle would be allowed to graze on the disputed land that was the flashpoint of the entire episdode.
In addition, Bundy's cattle that were confiscated by the BLM will be returned to him..at least the ones that weren't shot and killed. The BLM refused to release the number of cattle killed, saying 'they have protocols. and the information isn't available.'
Here's what ostensibly sparked this incident. Cliven Bundy's Mormon family have been ranching in this remote area of Southern Nevada since the 1870's. And his cattle have always grazed on an adjoining area of county land, for which he paid grazing fees. In a surprise move without any notice or right of appeal by Bundy, that county land was 'reclassified' by the BLM as federal land. The excuse behind this was so transparent as to be ludicrous. The BLM claimed they were trying to protect the supposedly endangered desert tortoise..even though the tortoise population has exploded to the point where the BLM admittedly has killed over 1,000 of them.
When Bundy refused to move, we saw the spectacle of the BLM moving in with SWAT teams, beating and abusing members of the Bundy family, confiscating Bundy's cattle and putting the ranch under virtual siege.
The real reason the land was reclassified is something that has occurred throughout the west..well connected pols want the region's ranchers and farmers out of business so they can gift the land to someone else for their own personal financial benefit.
The head of the Federal Bureau of Land Management is none other than Neil Kornze, Democrat Senator Harry Reid's former Chief of Staff. It's no exaggeration to say that Kornze has the job as a 'Reid appointment.'
The land Bundy was using and paying grazing fees on was in the sights of Harry Reid and his son Rory because it stood in the way of a $5 billion solar plant being built in the county by a Chinese company Reid was connected to, with undoubtedly an undisclosed amount of under the table cash headed Reid's way if he could get the land re-classified and the project moving.
Bundy is the last one left it what was once an area filled with independent cattl4e ranches.According to a statement he made recently, there used to be 52 other ranchers in the vicinity of his property not too long ago - and they're all gone.
As my friend Sara Noble relates at the Independent Sentinel, selling oil and gas leases to foreign buyers while refusing to let American companies drill and explore is another favorite trick of politicians like Harry Reid and his ilk:
Natural News reported that the Bureau of Land Management is in the business of leasing government lands to energy companies. Significant exploratory drilling is being conducted in precisely the same area where the Bundy family has been running cattle since the 1870′s. The “Gold Butte” area can be clearly seen in the map of areas drilled (purple demarcations).
Oil has been found in nearby areas but oil and gas drilling have worked alongside ranching over the years without a problem. Of course, if the government can lease the land on which the cattle graze, it will be lucrative for them.
In July 2011, the federal government agreed to allow China to buy up 600,000 acres of gas & oil fields in Texas. This is the same administration that would not allow new drilling; kicked Shell out of Alaska after billions of dollars of investments; shut down most offshore drilling; and tried to shut down Texas oil fields on the remote possibility that it might harm a tiny useless lizard that was most often known for being road kill.
The acreage takes in the Gold Butte area where Bundy grazes his cattle.
Once that story broke, mainly on Drudge and new media, ( and I have to give the usually suspect InfoWars a hand here) the stench was so bad that the BLM removed documents from its website showing that the move to kick the Bundys and their cattle off of the land was because their presence 'impeded development of solar energy' on the land.
And it was then that the BLM backed off..at least for now. The next move will probably be lawfare by Eric Holder and the Obama Justice Department paid for by your tax dollars in an attempt to bankrupt Bundy.
This is the natural fallout from the abuse of eminent domain that started with Kelo v. City of New London, where 'conservative' Supreme Court Justice David Souter was the swing vote that allowed government to seize an individual's private property because they felt like they could make a use of it that would do more to fatten Big Government's coffers.
And Big Government's kleptomania applies, also, to all other resources. For instance, in California, there's a drought, mainly because a lot of the water that used to make the state's Central Valley one of the greatest farm areas on the planet has been locked away due to environmentalist lobby's concern about a fish called the delta smelt. The area is now filled with fields, orchards and farms that are now fallow because they're no longer viable without the water the taxpayers of California paid to harness, and a surprising amount of that once private land has now been 'reclassified' for projects like the bullet train to nowhere. or the ridiculous express train to Las Vegas, something Senator Reid also has his claws into.
In California, there's plenty of water for San Francisco, Silicone Valley, Los Angeles and other places where the coastal,Blue voting elites hang out and do business. It's the other parts of the state that are beinbg his with a 'water shortage.'
The rationale is that funds are needed to maintain and fund improvements in the highway systems, and the money isn't there. Apparently the hefty sales and excise taxes,which in high tax states like California can average almost 25% of the retail price of a gallon of gasoline at the pump either aren't enough or are being used elsewhere.
The Left is also seeing the results of som eof its favorite crusades, the push for hybrid electric cars (which use less gas at the pump but run on electricity generated by plants that run on fossil fuels or coal for the most part unless you're in a location where hydroelectric is available) and the constant war on domestic energy creation which has resulted in high fuel prices that have people simply driving less as a personal economy measure.
So they want to go to the black boxes.There's no mention, of course about exactly where the taxes collected at the pump are actually going.
As an added bonus, they will also be used to track where you drive and even whether you're exceeding the speed limit...so an electronic ticket can be generated and automatically mailed to you. It's a lot cheaper and more inclusive for them than those little radar guns and the overhead cameras.
Needless to say, the Ruling Class will almost certainly receive waivers if this goes into effect.
Wonks call it a mileage-based user fee. It is no surprise that the idea appeals to urban liberals, as the taxes could be rigged to change driving patterns in ways that could help reduce congestion and greenhouse gases, for example. California planners are looking to the system as they devise strategies to meet the goals laid out in the state's ambitious global warming laws.
Of course they are.The idea is control, and ideally forcing people to primarily use public transportation by making private cars very expensive propositions to use.
At one point, the article refers to the proposed black box imposed levy as a ' mileage-based user fee'.
User fees, like the registration fees you pay to your local Department of Motor Vehicles are currently a tax deductible item. Anyone want to bet this 'user fee' won't be?
Last night was the first night of Mardi Gras in New Orleans. For those of you who've been there, it's a serious street party and a night when people put on masks and costumes and pretend to be something they're not - to deceive people.
It was a perfect choice for the night of this president's State of the Union.
For the masochists among you, the entire text is here, but I can tell you everything you need to know about it with a lot less pain.
First, the president's delivery was astounding for a man who just won re-election. It was halting, stumbling and for the most part gave the impression that President Obama would rather have been anywhere else.There was even a faint air of resentment. Can it be that even he realizes deep inside that the act is wearing thin, but still was obliged to put on the performance?
Rather than an energetic war cry to the progressive Übermenschen we were told to expect, it was, well, small. Just a tired restatement of the same old failed agenda and false claims. It was even even petulant at times.
The content itself is what you'd call a target rich environment, to the point where it's difficult to know where to start to deconstruct this lame gibberish, although I though Senator Rand Paul did a decent job:
Interesting how both of them trod pretty much the same ground...
For my part, and especially since I don't have to be correct in the least, here are just a few specific nuggets neither one mentioned per se. I won't even bother going after President Obama's fairy tales about deficit reduction or job creation:
"My message is simple. It is time to stop rewarding businesses that ship jobs overseas and start rewarding companies that create jobs right here in America. Send me these tax reforms, and I will sign them right away."
Please,my sides. Shipping jobs overseas? You mean like the UAW that owns GM courtesy of your rewarding them for campaign donations and political support, let alone taxpayer dollars to seal the deal and a $450 billion tax break so they needn't pay taxes and can build cars in China?
And after all, Mr. President...with ObamaCare,a poisonous regulatory environment, high energy costs and the highest corporate taxes in the developed world, why would they create jobs here?
"I will not cede the wind or solar or battery industry to China or Germany because we refuse to make the same commitment here. We’ve subsidized oil companies for a century. That’s long enough."
First of all, almost all of the president's pet green energy projects ala' Solyndra have been total failures, except when it comes to fattening the personal wallets of the well connected Obama donors running them. They haven't created jobs, and they haven't provided cheaper or more reliable energy unless you count political hot air.
Oh, and by the way..the Germans are more than willing for you to take as much of the solar action as you can handle.You must of missed that briefing too.
And that bit about 'subsidizing' the oil companies..
The average profit for one the Evil Oil Companies for locating the oil, drilling it out of the ground, shipping it, refining it into gasoline, marketing it and shipping it to your local gas station is around 9% per gallon. Government's cut, just for being there? Depending on your state and local taxes, between 22-28%!
So guess what...Big Government loves high gas prices,because the higher they go, the more of your money they get to grab.Any wonder that President Obama's policies have been grooved to encourage price hikes, by handcuffing domestic production, vetoing the Keystone Pipeline and encouraging monetary policies like quantitative easing that weaken the dollar?
And that affects not just the price at the pump, but the price of food at the market and goods people buy that get shipped by trucks and trains that gulf fuel to run. And might we mention all the jobs this has eliminated?
Way to champion the middle class, Mr. President!
The president mentioned in passing in last night's remarks that Americans are using less oil. At $4.00+ per gallon, we sure are, Mr. President. As little as we can, because we can't all manage to be driven around in pimped out black Cadillac Escalades or on Air Force One at someone else's expense.
The president also thumped his chest about how he ended the Iraq War, even though the entire agreement on withdrawing our forces was set up by President Bush and all Obama had to do was keep hitting the golf course for that to occur. Howdy Doody could have been elected president and the war would have ended.
Not only that, but let's not forget how the Iraq war ended...the surge strategy, which President Obama, Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, John Kerry and yes Chuck Hagel all opposed and did their very best to sabotage.
How hypocritical and self-deluding to you have to be to take credit for something not only did nothing to bring about but did your best to prevent in the name of partisan politics?
Oh, and I loved this one:
"And while it’s ultimately up to the people of the region to decide their fate, we will advocate for those values that have served our own country so well. We will stand against violence and intimidation. We will stand for the rights and dignity of all human beings, men and women, Christians, Muslims, and Jews. We will support policies that lead to strong and stable democracies and open markets, because tyranny is no match for liberty."
So that's why this president has enabled and supported the Islamist takeover of Egypt, because they're oh-so-democratic and into human rights and all that.That's why we're shipping F-16's and Abrams tanks to Mohammed Morsi who considers Jews the descendants of apes and pigs, has his paid gangs rape women protestors in Cairo and supports sharia law that will take away the rights of women and Christians! That's why we're funding Hamas and the unelected dictator of the Palestinian Authority.That's why we've been arming the Syrian rebels even though we know that they're dominated by the Muslim Brotherhood and even al-Qaeda affiliates.Who knew?
And I won't even get into the numerous people with strong Muslim Brotherhood connections or people whom can only be considered their dupes who work in the administration..
President Obama may be advocating for something,but it isn't liberty or American values.
I often wonder how future generations will view these times. We've had three Boomer presidents, and all three have been self-involved, narcissistic, and self-serving, with President Obama by far being the worst of the lot.Former President Bush, with all his failings at least had the grace to appear embarrassed some of the time and at least to demonstrate some humility from time to time.
In an e-mail thread today, it was mentioned that Fidel Castro came from the middle class, and that his father owned a banana plantation. My response was that Castor was a typical Marxist - just like Lenin, someone whom came out of the comfortable well-off, middle class bourgeoisie and grew up to somehow learn to hate his own class so much that he made it his life's mission to destroy it.
It occurs to me that this is President Obama's story as well.
It's embarrassing that this president considers us fools, expects us to swallow this kind of swill and say 'thank you sir! May I have another?' But that's the situation we find ourselves in.It's like living in Rome during the period of the Bad Emperors that started once Commodus became emperor in 180 AD and continued for about a century - no term limits back then except the ones you get with a sword in the ribs or a poisoned wine cup.
The country is crying for leadership, whether those in the DC and media bubbles realize it or not.And politics, like nature, abhors a vacuum.
When Congress expressed concern (to put it mildly) about over $23 billion in government backed loans to troubled green energy companies that - surprise- were owned or had major investment by well connected Obama donors, the Administration responded by appointing a man who was termed ' an independent watchdog', a Wall Street executive named Herbert M. Allison Jr. to examine the loans and allay their fears.
Allison examined the loans, and testified to Congress back in March that the loans were legitimate and there was nothing much to worry about.
In his report, Allison acknowledged that the Energy Department could lose as much as $3 billion in loans, but it concluded that was far less than the $10 billion set aside by Congress for high-risk companies. Allison also decided not to take into account the losses from loans to two firms, Solyndra and Beacon Power that had already gone bankrupt because those loans weren't on the books any longer and that money was already lost. Allison also told Congress that " the DOE (Department of Energy) has negotiated protections in the loan agreements that enable it to cut off further funding and to demand more credit protection if projects do not meet targets."
Two weeks after he testified to Congress, he began donating heavily to the Obama Campaign and the Democratic National Committee, a total of over $52,000.
Meanwhile, a whole slew of the green energy loans he gave a clean bill of health to just happen to have gone underwater.
On Wednesday the Department of Energy began financing solar power installation research with a $2 million award to Solar Mosaic. The solar energy research company has former Obama “green jobs” czar Van Jones listed as an advisor. It also employed Rebuild the Dream, Jones’ firm, to do its public relations work.
The DOE’s grant money will be distributed to nine companies in four states. Solar Mosaic received the most money, four times the amount of most other grants.
Four times as much..gosh, I wonder why?
Now you know who your tax dollars are supporting....or rather, whom President Obama is supporting.
Now go out and buy some nice, curly mega-expensive new age mercury-filled light bulbs in Gaea's name. But be careful not to drop any unless you want to spend a lot more money having a hazmat team clean up the toxic mess.
Sometimes, you have to actually see what California has become to believe that it's not some wacky Hollywood made sitcom.
The latest insanity has the Democrat dominated legislature and Governor Jerry Brown with a new scheme to pare done California's $9 billion deficit - they're going to auction off pollution credits to oil refineries, factories utilities and power plants as part of a loony new 'cap and trade' scheme.
Of course, doing this is going to skyrocket the price of utilities, fuel, food and consumer good for the average Californian and add to the state's massive unemployment as some businesses relocate, others curtail hiring and others simply rethink opening up and bringing new jobs in the once Golden State and , but hey, that's for the little people to worry about. Meanwhile Governor Brown and his friends think they can raise $1 to $3 billion to use for things like California's bullet trains to nowhere or for other wasteful projects deemed 'social welfare'. AKA bribes to deserving Democrats. I guarantee you it won't be spent to pay down the deficit.
Governor Brown claims the authority to do this is AB 22, a state global warming initiative signed by Governor Arnold Schwartzenegger in 2006.
Unfortunately, the statute doesn't mention any kind of 'pollution auction' or fees, so the businesses affected are expected to go to court, which means some more money the state doesn't have will be tied up in litigation. According to state law, Governor Brown and the Democrats would need a two thirds majority to change the law, which they're unlikely to get because there are just enough Republicans still in the legislature to block it if they choose to.
Meanwhile, environmentalist wackos, government functionaries and special interests are all fighting about spending money they haven't even received yet. And Governor Brown already has $1 billion from this cap n' tax scheme figured into his July 2012 budget.
DesertXpress, a privately held company linked to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has a plan.
They want to build a bullet train that would take tourists from a desolate desert area in California to the gambling resorts of Las Vegas...and they're on the verge of scoring a $4.9 billion loan from the Obama administration to do it.
Here's DesertXPress's idea in a nutshell. Californians from Los Angeles will gas up, drive 100 miles in their cars, pull off I-15, drive to an area outside of Victorville and board a DesertXpress train at around $100 per ticket to go th erest of the way..not counting what DesertXpress will probably charge for parking.
Like Solyndra and the rest of Obama's 'green jobs' agenda, this is simply a nice Chicago-style reward for some well connected Democrats at the expense of the taxpayers, as well as a backscratcher for Senator Reid.
Let's look at the proposition. First of all, the California location they're talking about eliminates any reason to use the new depot. Anyone headed towards Vegas from the greater Los Angeles area who's made the trek before on a weekend or holidays absolutely dreads the heavy I-15 commute. What the brilliant planners of this bit of graft would expect you to believe is that people will endure three quarters of it, get out of their cars and then pay big to take the train the rest of the way.
Right now, there's already bus service run by AmTrack and several other companies from Los Angeles to Vegas. AmTrack claims the trip takes about 6 hours and the fare is $55. Another company offers a trip that takes 5 hours for $25 - $40 each way, with a $10 discount on round trips. Grey hound goes there too. Seniors. a big part of the Las Vegas clientele use these buses all the time, and the casinos frequently offer discount coupons as well to make it even cheaper. And remember...these fares are from Los Angeles, without the Vegas bound visitors having to pay for gas and drive in heavy traffic for three hours from the Los Angeles area to some place in the desert, pay additional money to park their cars and then pay $100 more to go the rest of the way instead of just driving for another hour.
For that matter, air fare from LAX, John Wayne or Burbank airports is usually under $100 round trip, and again, the casinos and hotels frequently offer discounts and packages to make it even less.
DesertXpress and its eager backers in the Obama Administration would have you believe that their potential customers are stupid enough toline up topay through the nose for this 'service.' Instead of flying in comfort for the same price less gas, stress, driver time and parking, or taking a bus for even less without fighting traffic and paying for gas and parking.
And to get it going, they only want the Obama Administration to give them $5 billion in the form of a low interest FRA loan to put this nonsense into operation.Such a deal! At least for them.
Not only that, but the projects official rationale, jobs, is an absolute joke. DesertXPress claims that building the project will generate 80,000 new jobs, but the FRA's own research in conjunction with the loan request shows that this is a wildly inflated number, that most of the jobs created would be temporary, and something like only 700 jobs would be permanent. Meanwhile, towns down the highway would shed jobs. Barstow's mayor calls this 'catastrophic' and estimates they would lose up to 2,300 jobs in his city alone.
The personalities involved are interesting as well.Casino developer and contractor Anthony Marnell II is the major shareholder in DesertXPress, while project consultant Sig Rogich, runs the most influential lobbying and advertising company in Nevada and is co-chair of Republicans for Reid, a Nevada group with ties to the gambling industry. Marnell, another member of Republicans for Reid has donated at least $15,000 to political committees connected to Reid since 2010, including a $5,000 donation in May to Senator Reid's Searchlight Leadership Fund.
Other investors include North Dakota businessman Gary Tharaldson, who donated $10,000 to a Reid committee in March.
And then there's the matter of a recent mysterious issuing of 25,000 shares of stock by DesertXpress HRS Corp.on Marnell's orders.DesertXpress isn't saying whom the shares were issued to, who holds them, and in what amounts.
Same old story. Oh, and as a parting note, there isn't one bullet train in the world operating without a government subsidy. So if this monstrosity ever does get built, the $5 billion is just a down payment.
Jay Carney is a unique human being, and likely worth every penny of his taxpayer funded salary to the Obama Administration. You have to wonder where they found him. Pravda? The fifth dimension? Columbia J-School? Baghdad Bob's School of Media Misrepresentation? You'd have to really search hard to find someone willing and able to tout the party line so diligently while keeping a straight face. And so perfectly named, too!
When asked about the President's position on the Keystone Pipeline at a press conference on March 8th, Carney explained in answer to one of th eusual softballs that the president "believes it is wrong to play politics" with the Keystone pipeline because 'it's route has yet to be determined'....solely because the President refused to approve any of the proposals he was given.
And then five seconds later, when challenged by a reporter about a Politico article that the president was personally lobbying Democrat Senators to kill the amendment for Keystone's funding..he admits that President Obama is doing exactly that!
Here's what Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell had to say about it:
“Last night the two parties reached agreement on amendments to the Highway Bill. I’m happy to report that there are a number of strong job creating measures in the mix. One that stands out is Senator Hoeven’s amendment on the Keystone XL Pipeline.
“Most Americans strongly support building this pipeline and the jobs that would come with it. And it’s incomprehensible to me that the President of the United States is lobbying against it.
“There’s a report this morning that President Obama is personally making phone calls to Democrat Senators he thinks might vote for this amendment. He’s asking them not to. And, frankly, it’s hard to even comprehend how out of touch he is on this issue.
“I mean, think about it: at a moment when millions are out of work, gas prices are skyrocketing and the Middle East is in turmoil, we’ve got a president who’s up making phone calls trying to block a pipeline here at home. It’s unbelievable.
“What we’re seeing in Congress this week is a study in contrasts.
“On the one hand you’ve got a Republican-controlled House that’s about to pass a bipartisan jobs bill that would help entrepreneurs and innovators by getting Washington out of the way. And today we’ve got a Democratic-controlled Senate trying to line up votes against amendments that would create jobs—and a President lobbying against the biggest one.
“We’ve got an opportunity to work together to create jobs. We can do that with these amendments. And we can do that by taking up the bipartisan jobs bill the House will pass later today.
“Let me just say a word about that. The bipartisan jobs bill the House will pass later today is supported by the President. It is ready to go, and I hope that once it gets over to the Senate we'll simply take it up and pass it.
“It's an example of a measure that is supported by Republicans and Democrats and the President that we believe will clear the House with a very large majority. I think the sooner we pass that here in the Senate and send it down to the President for signature, the better.
“With that, Mr. President, I yield the floor.”
Senator McConnell is very wrong on one thing - President Obama is very much in touch on this issue.
What he and his far Left myrmidons want is an America where gas prices are as high or higher than they are in Europe, where most people are forced into public transportation run by the government and the private cars that exist are abomination like the Volt, where a lightbulb costs ten times as much as before and its' breaking calls for a major hazmat cleansing rather than a broom and a dustpan.
And above all, an America where the tax payers are raped by government giveaways to green energy scams run by well connected insiders and Democrat campaign donors.
Because America, in his mind, deserves to be taken down a peg and made to pay for our sins.
Germany, being the staunch advocate of climate change and global warming it is like much of the EU prided itself on being the "world champion” of solar power. They doled out billions of marks on subsidies for consumers and businesses to go solar to reduce Germany's carbon footprint in response to the 'settled science' propaganda pushed by the global warming cult.
Germans used that money to install a solar capacity of 7.5 gigawatts last year. And warum nicht, if Big Government was paying for it and Al Gore and the UN said it was just what they should be doing?
Actually, Big Government wasn't paying for all of it, as it turns out. Solar power users were allowed to receive a guaranteed above-market price for the electricity they sold back to energy grid which was financed by - surprise!- a tax on every household's electricity bill. That alone amounted last year to a subsidy of some €6 billion ($7.9 billion), which is estimated to add at least an average of $260 to German consumer's annual energy costs.
The German government, after going over the figures, has decided to pull the plug on solar subsidies. They will cut them at least 30% this year and phase them out entirely within five years. Given how much it has cost the German government, I wouldn't be surprised to see them gone entirely before the end of 2013, and that's only because of the unemployment entailed as German companies who went into solar technology to take advantage of the government-funded 'sunshine rush' lay off workers or go bust.
This particular green energy scam hit Germans in the pocketbook in various ways.
One of the chief problems with solar for a high wage country like Germany is the cost of manufacturing solar panels and installing them. This was something Big Government was subsidizing in the name of green jobs. Unfortunately, the solar panels can be manufactured far cheaper in China, so every one of those 'green jobs' ended up costing German taxpayers an average of $175,000. And as we've seen elsewhere, China is not exactly overly concerned about things like pollution, 'carbon footprints' or 'global warming'. Think of it as another huge Solyndra.
Germany's climate, like most of Northern Europe's is not exactly the sunniest in the world. That's particularly true in the winter, when energy use peaks because of heating costs. When the winter days are short and the weather is overcast, Germany's solar power investment generates hardly anything - which means the Germans have to import traditional energy from power plants, some of them coal powered, in places like France, Poland and the Czech Republic. Not only that, but because the EU instituted the cap n' trade nonsense President Obama tried to have his EPA impose here, what the whole program has amounted to is a transfer of wealth to poorer EU countries:
Indeed, despite the massive investment, solar power accounts for only about 0.3 percent of Germany’s total energy. This is one of the key reasons why Germans now pay the second-highest price for electricity in the developed world (exceeded only by Denmark, which aims to be the “world wind-energy champion”). Germans pay three times more than their American counterparts.
Moreover, this sizeable investment does remarkably little to counter global warming. Even with unrealistically generous assumptions, the unimpressive net effect is that solar power reduces Germany’s CO2 emissions by roughly 8 million metric tons—or about 1 percent – for the next 20 years. To put it another way: By the end of the century, Germany’s $130 billion solar panel subsidies will have postponed temperature increases by 23 hours.
Using solar, Germany is paying about $1,000 per ton of CO2 reduced. The current CO2 price in Europe is $8. Germany could have cut 131 times as much CO2 for the same price. Instead, the Germans are wasting more than 99 cents of every euro that they plow into solar panels.
It gets worse: Because Germany is part of the European Union Emissions Trading System, the actual effect of extra solar panels in Germany leads to no CO2 reductions, because total emissions are already capped. Instead, the Germans simply allow other parts of the EU to emit more CO2. Germany’s solar panels have only made it cheaper for Portugal or Greece to use coal.
Solar energy can be a good idea in places that it was better designed to work, especially with active systems that capture the excess energy for use when the sun doesn't shine. Israel in particular has made massive strides in both the technology used to capture the energy and in manufacturing the panels more efficiently. There are even solar generators that can be used as an emergency backup in case of power failures. But having government subsidize it in the name of Holy Gaia and climate change has turned out to be a spectacularly bad idea in Germany and everywhere else it's been tried.
Remember this cautionary tale when you hear President Obama mouthing off about energy in his quest for re-election. There's no doubt if he gets back in, we'll seen even more of our wealth squandered on green energy scams like Solyndra run by his donors and cronies.
If even the Washington Post is finally forced to report on this, you know it's bad. Solyndra was by no means the only instance of Chicago-style graft in the White House.
Sanjay Wagle was a venture capitalist and Barack Obama fundraiser in 2008, rallying support through a group he headed known as Clean Tech for Obama.
Shortly after Obama’s election, he left his California firm to join the Energy Department, just as the administration embarked on a massive program to stimulate the economy with federal investments in clean-technology firms.
Following an enduring Washington tradition, Wagle shifted from the private sector, where his firm hoped to profit from federal investments, to an insider’s seat in the administration’s $80 billion clean-energy investment program.
He was one of several players in venture capital, which was providing financial backing to start-up clean-tech companies, who moved into the Energy Department at a time when the agency was seeking outside expertise in the field. At the same time, their industry had a huge stake in decisions about which companies would receive government loans, grants and support.
During the next three years, the department provided $2.4 billion in public funding to clean-energy companies in which Wagle’s former firm, Vantage Point Venture Partners, had invested, a Washington Post analysis found. Overall, the Post found that $3.9 billion in federal grants and financing flowed to 21 companies backed by firms with connections to five Obama administration staffers and advisers.
Obama’s program to invest federal funds in start-up companies — and the failure of some of those companies — is becoming a rallying cry for opponents in the presidential race. Mitt Romney has promised to focus on Obama’s “record” as a “venture capitalist.” And in ads and speeches, conservative groups and the Republican candidates are zeroing in on the administration’s decision to extend $535 million to the now-shuttered solar firm Solyndra and billions of dollars more to clean-tech start-ups backed by the president’s political allies.
And of course, some of the trails lead straight back to ...George Soros, who stands to make over $120 million dollars on stock he owns in Westport Innovations, a Canadian company that distributes now selling liquefied natural gas-powered engines manufactured in China. Kevin G. Douglas, Westport’s largest individual shareholder, has given more than $30,000 to Obama and the Democratic National Committee and both he and Soros stand to benefit hugely from a bill pushed by Obama and the Democrats ironically called - wait for it - the New Alternative Transportation to Give Americans Solutions Act. The bill will give tax credits to firms purchasing the Chinese-made engines to replace diesel and gasoline engines in their fleets, with most of them coming through the Canadian firm Westport.
Call it a Chicago-style coincidence.I'm sure the president does.
