A History Lesson Ahead of Biden’s Green New Tax

“The thing I’m proudest of that we were able to get done in the first term was the Recovery Act. It had $90 billion in clean-energy programs.” -Vice President Joe Biden, May 9, 2013. 

August 13th, 2022

By Larry Behrens @ CFACT  115 Comments 

The start of a new week brought a renewed sense of momentum for President Joe Biden’s administration and his allies in Congress. At long last, the months-long gridlock, caused by their own party, finally broke and another gusher of tax dollars appears ready to flood our country. Economic realities and those pesky inflation reports be damned.

Proponents have dubbed the bill the “Inflation Reduction Act” because they know it sounds better than the truth: “Biden’s Green New Tax.” History will be the judge about the wisdom of pouring trillions of dollars on an economy struggling with excessive spending. No matter how you slice it, with $369 billion dollars devoted to climate and energy programs, it’s clear there’s a lot on the line for the American taxpayer. If we want to know how the Biden Administration will dole out our dollars, we need look no further than the last time Biden got billions to go green.

As part of the so-called “Recovery Act” passed during the first term of President Obama, there was $90 billion set aside for the very same climate and energy reasoning. President Obama turned to his trusty Vice President to help administer those funds. The results were disastrous.

First, the well-known failure of Solyndra was pinned on Obama, but it was Biden who led the charge in losing $535 million in the fiasco.  Solyndra became the poster child of green failure, but it was far from alone.

Then there was $20.5 billion in federal loans distributed from that 2009 stimulus. One examination found that a whopping 80 percent of that money when to “10 members of former President Barack Obama’s finance committee, and more than 12 of his bundlers.”

Note: This number is shockingly close to the current $20 billion Joe Biden wants to send to “green banks” so it can, once again, be distributed to people and organizations that may have ties to supporting Biden’s campaigns.

Two years before Joe Biden called his work on the recovery funds the “proudest” part of his first term as vice president, the Government Accountability Office raised concerns about how those funds we handled. The federal loan program “lacked appropriate tools for assessing progress,” showed favoritism to some applicants and found “reporting and quality issues” when it came to figuring out just how many “green” jobs were created. Keep in mind, this was Joe Biden’s “proudest” accomplishment.

Fast forward to 2022 and President Biden is again proud to have four times more money than he had in 2009.  Included in his Green New Tax is the extension of a massive giveaway to those who buy electric vehicles. Studies have shown that those looking to buy an EV make at least $150,000 in annual income, but apparently Joe Biden feels they need a tax break.

Past tends to be prologue for a reason. What we are witnessing with Biden’s Green New Tax is a repeat of 2009. A bill packed with billions of pork that will mostly benefit the rich and those who support President Biden’s failed energy agenda. Joe Biden may be proud of what he did in 2009, but history shows us his pride comes with a huge tag.

Larry Behrens is the Communications Director for Power The Future, a non-profit that advocates for America’s energy workers. You can find him on Twitter @larrybehrens or you can email him: larry@powerthefuture.com

This article originally appeared at Real Clear Energy

Remember Solyndra? (Blast From the Past)

(Editor's Note: I've been going back through my files and updating the labels, and I've come across some worthwhile articles that are still relevant today. This is one of them.  RK)

By WND Staff Published October 18, 2012

'Extent of its failure has been largely ignored by the press'

Remember Solyndra? That’s where taxpayers lost hundreds of millions of dollars after the Obama administration handed out money and the company took it and went out of business.

But how about Evergreen Solar? Or Beacon Power? Or EnerDel subsidiary Ener1? They also took taxpayer money from the Obama administration for their “green” energy projects, and then filed for bankruptcy.

In fact, a new report from the Heritage Foundation says, “So far, 36 companies that have received federal support from taxpayers have either gone bankrupt or are laying off workers and are heading for bankruptcy.”

“It is no secret that President Obama’s and green-energy supporters’ (from both parties) foray into venture capitalism has not gone well. But the extent of its failure has been largely ignored by the press. Sure, single instances garner attention as they happen, but they ignore past failures in order to make it seem like a rare case,” the report said.   Those are among the “losers”accused Obama of picking.  

Editor’s Note: Please read the whole article.  Those 36 companies are listed. To Read More.......

‘Four Times Greater Than Solyndra': DOE Drops 1,200 Pages Of Heavily Redacted Docs On Green Energy Loans

Posted on December 26, 2015 by Michael Bastasch — 13 Comments

The Department of Energy recently turned over more than 1,200 pages of heavily redacted documents in response to a records request about a subsidized biofuels company from The Daily Caller News Foundation.

In October, TheDCNF filed a FOIA request with the Energy Department, asking for email records from government officials regarding federal loan guarantees given to Abengoa, a Spanish-based green energy company. The request came on the heels of reports Abengoa was running into big financial problems, despite being given generous taxpayer-backed loans.
The DOE gave TheDCNF the records it requested Dec. 18, and after spending time reviewing the documents, it’s apparent there’s a lot of information the department did not want the public to see. The DOE redacted virtually all information specific to Abengoa — in many cases whole pages were blacked out..........To Read More.....

My Take - In times past pages had redacted areas due to national security concers or concerns over sensitive issues surrounding criminal proceedings.  It appears the criminal proceedings they're worried about protecting are their own. 

Obama's green energy handouts costing billions

'Extent of its failure has been largely ignored by the press'

Remember Solyndra? That’s where taxpayers lost hundreds of millions of dollars after the Obama administration handed out money and the company took it and went out of business.

But how about Evergreen Solar? Or Beacon Power? Or EnerDel subsidiary Ener1? They also took taxpayer money from the Obama administration for their “green” energy projects, and then filed for bankruptcy.

In fact, a new report from the Heritage Foundation says, “So far, 36 companies that have received federal support from taxpayers have either gone bankrupt or are laying off workers and are heading for bankruptcy.”

“It is no secret that President Obama’s and green-energy supporters’ (from both parties) foray into venture capitalism has not gone well. But the extent of its failure has been largely ignored by the press. Sure, single instances garner attention as they happen, but they ignore past failures in order to make it seem like a rare case,” the report said.   Those are among the “losers”accused Obama of picking.  

Editor’s Note: Please read the whole article.  Those 36 companies are listed. To Read More.......

"Green" tax dodgers

The Internal Revenue Service urged a bankruptcy judge to reject solar panel maker Solyndra LLC's bankruptcy plan Wednesday, saying it amounts to little more than an avenue for owners of an empty corporate shell to avoid paying taxes.  "The undeniable conclusion is that tax benefits drive this plan," attorneys for the IRS wrote in a bankruptcy pleading.

Arguing that the bankruptcy court ought not confirm a plan "whose principal purpose is tax avoidance," attorneys said in filings in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Delaware that the tax breaks would be worth more money than funds set aside for creditors.  Taxpayers are on the hook for more than a half-billion dollars after the company filed for bankruptcy last year, just two years after winning a loan guarantee from the Department of Energy. What's more, government attorneys said that as far back as 2010, Solyndra owners had "planned meticulously" to be able to use Solyndra's net operating losses to offset future tax liabilities.

"The only reason for the shell corporation to exist post-confirmation is to enable its owners to exploit these tax attributes, which would be lost in liquidation," the IRS argued in court papers.  To Read More.....

Observations From the Back Row: 10-15-11

...

“De Omnibus Dubitandum”

Video with John Stossel and Richard Tren regarding DDT

A complete list of things caused by global warming

Battling Bad Science

New Video: Paul Ryan on Repealing Obamacare

Everthing we are told should bear some resemblance to what we see going on in reality!

______________________________________

Creation Myth - Governments are worse than no good at “creating jobs.”

A week before President Barack Obama was scheduled to deliver yet another big-think proposal to Get America Working Again, reality intervened with a well-timed smack upside the head: Solyndra, a California solar panel company, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Back in May 2010, as part of the run-up to what the administration was then touting as “Recovery Summer,” Obama used Solyndra as a poster child for both the 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act and his long-stated promise to create millions of “green jobs.”…. Agency numbers cited by Investor’s Business Daily in August, the Recovery Act’s $7.2 billion in “clean tech” money had “created or retained” a pathetic 7,140 jobs, at a cost of about $1 million each. According to the Department of Energy’s inspector general, one reason for this paltry payoff is the wage and regulatory provisions of the Davis-Bacon Act, the National Environmental Policy Act, and the Buy American Act. In sum: The government scooped up hundreds of billions from taxpayers, redistributed it in the name of creating jobs, then attached a series of requirements that made job creation much more expensive and therefore unlikely……Contributing Editor Deirdre McCloskey highlights what may be the most salient point: “‘Jobs’ are deals between workers and employers, and so ‘creating’ them out of unwilling parties is impossible. The state, though, can outlaw deals, and has.” Until that insight sinks in, it will be a long time before America gets back to work.

SunPower: Twice As Bad As Solyndra, Twice As Bad For Obama -Congressman's son lobbied f
or failing solar panel company

How did a failing California solar company, buffeted by short sellers and shareholder lawsuits, receive a $1.2 billion federal loan guarantee for a photovoltaic electricity ranch project—three weeks after it announced it was building new manufacturing plant in Mexicali, Mexico, to build the panels for the project.

The company, SunPower (SPWR-NASDAQ), now carries $820 million in debt, an amount $20 million greater than its market capitalization. If SunPower was a bank, the feds would shut it down. Instead, it received a lifeline twice the size of the money sent down the Solyndra drain.

Green Jobs Brown Out - How to spend $157,000 per job.

The green jobs subsidy story gets more embarrassing by the day. Three years ago President Obama promised that by the end of the decade America would have five million green jobs, but so far some $90 billion in government spending has delivered very few.  A new report by the Labor Department's Office of Inspector General examined a $500 million grant under the stimulus program to the Employment and Training Administration to "train and prepare individuals for careers in 'green jobs.'" So far about $162.8 million has been spent. The program was supposed to train 125,000 workers, but only 53,000 have been "trained" so far, only 8,035 have found jobs, and only 1,033 were still in the job after six months.

Occupy Wall Street: Communism's Clueless Foot Soldiers

"The time has come," the Walrus said,

"To talk of many things:

Of shoes, and ships, and sealing wax -

Of cabbages and kings,

And why the sea is boiling hot,

And whether pigs have wings."

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Observations From the Back Row: 9-19-11

...

“De Omnibus Dubitandum”

Video with John Stossel and Richard Tren regarding DDT

A complete list of things caused by global warming

Green or Alternative Energy

Quotes of the Day

1. The only valid definition for green is that it is a mixture of blue and yellow.  Any other definition deminishes a perfectly good color. - I think this one is mine

2. Often the choice is not between what you want and what you don't want. It's between what you don't want and what you REALLY don't want. - Unknown

3. Put the federal government in charge of the Sahara Desert and in five years there'd be a sand shortage. - Milton Friedman

Ouch! A Quarter of a Trillion Dollars for the Green Carpetbaggers !

A UN report has calculated last year's investment in so-called "clean energy" at a staggering 243 billion dollars for technology that basically doesn't work in real energy systems. One quarter of a trillion dollars could solve a lot of the world's problems in feeding and housing the poorest, providing education and medical care and bringing hope and opportunity to those who have none but instead the money will fund every loony project these onanists can dream up and call "clean energy".

German 'Energy Revolution' Depends on Nuclear Imports

Germany's decision to phase out its nuclear power plants by 2022 has rapidly transformed it from power exporter to importer. Despite Berlin's pledge to move away from nuclear, the country is now merely buying atomic energy from neighbors like the Czech Republic and France. The nuclear power plant in the Czech village of Temelin, barely 100 kilometers (62 miles) as the crow flies from the Bavarian city of Passau, has a reputation for being particularly prone to malfunctions. Over the years, there have been 130 reported incidents here. Sometimes it's a generator that fails; at others, a few thousand liters of radioactive liquid leak out of the plant. "The entire facility needs to be shut down immediately," says Rebecca Harms, a member of the European Parliament representing Germany's Green Party……….The German government's 180-degree turn in nuclear policy has helped breathe new life into Europe's energy industry -- though not always to Germany's benefit. The country has gone from being an energy exporter to an energy importer practically overnight, which brings along with it a number of negative consequences for its economy, consumers and security.

Solyndra - Obama's Big Green Boondoggle

With the scandalous bankruptcy of Solyndra (a shady California solar power company that received $535 million in stimulus funds and is now under investigation by the FBI) hanging overhead, President Obama wisely whitewashed any mention of "green jobs" out of his latest address to Congress. But buried in the details of his latest government jobs bill released this week -- Spawn of the Spendulus, Porky's II, Night of the Keynesian Dead -- are yet more big green boondoggles that will reward cronies, waste taxpayer dollars and make no dent in the jobless rate.

Happy Hour: Smells Like Solyndra

Jon Stewart skewers the Obama administration on Solyndra. Was Solyndra actually looking at getting another loan from the federal government?.... So should taxpayers' count themselves lucky that Solyndra went bankrupt when it did - before the feds sank another $469 million into its solar power enterprise? Perhaps. Solyndra's SEC filing - dry reading for sure - can be read in its entirety by clicking here.

Despite Solyndra, Energy Department giving out loans faster than before

As the Solyndra scandal continues to dominate headlines, it looks like the Energy Department is continuing its program of giving out loans to clean-technology companies. However, as the Washington Post recently reported, payments to energy companies are now taking place at a FASTER rate than they were before. The Energy Department, under fire over its management of a program that offers loan guarantees to clean-technology companies, has been finalizing additional multimillion-dollar loan guarantees in the program at a rate of more than one a week since the beginning of August. It now has just two weeks left to commit the program’s remaining $9.3 billion. Since the start of August, the Department of Energy has closed seven loan guarantees, at a rate of more than one a week — after approving just 11 in the previous 26 months of the program.

WH Official Dismissed Solyndra Warnings as "B.S."

....Emails released Thursday night show that Obama administration privately worried about the effect of a default by Solyndra Inc. on the president's re-election campaign. "The optics of a Solyndra default will be bad," an official from the Office of Management and Budget wrote in a Jan. 31 email to a senior OMB official. "The timing will likely coincide with the 2012 campaign season heating up." The email, released by the House Energy and Commerce Committee as part of its investigation into the Solyndra loan, showed that Obama administration officials were concerned about Solyndra's financial health even as they publicly declared the solar panel maker in good shape.

Move Over Solyndra: Four More Government-Funded Flops

Well, well, well. It seems Solyndra isn't the only company to have crashed and burned, despite a massive injection of stimulus money. FoxNews reports that at least four other companies received government funding, and subsequently filed for bankruptcy. Adding insult to injury, two of these companies were supposed to create (or was it save?) "green jobs."

Evergreen Solar Inc., indirectly received $5.3 million through a state grant to open a $450 million facility in 2007 that employed roughly 800 people. The company, once a rock star in the solar industry, filed for bankruptcy protection last month, saying it couldn't compete with Chinese rivals without reorganizing. The company intends to focus on building up its manufacturing facility in China.

SpectraWatt, based in Hopewell Junction, N.Y., is also a solar cell company that was spun out of Intel in 2008. In June 2009, SpectraWatt received a $500,000 grant from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory as part of the stimulus package. SpectraWatt was one of 13 compaines to receive the money to help develop ways to improve solar cells without changing current manufacturing processes. The company filed for bankruptcy last month, saying it could not compete with its Chinese competitors, which receive "considerable government and financial support."

Oh yeah, and there hasn't been substantial demand for solar panels, so no one is buying the commodity we're producing expensively anyway. Minor detail.

My Take - For a fraction of the cost I could have predicted this disaster for them. Certainly not the details but the outcome was absolutely sure. Why? That is the simplist answer of them all. One of my favorite lines is that if you tell me the entire history of an issue I will give you the answer. We have gone through all of this before. From the economic boondoggles of the FDR administration to the complete and utter incompetance of the Carter administration. This green energy foolishness was another one of his many failures, which includes the creation of the Energy Department in 1977. But at least these guys could claim some degree of ignorance because these ideas hadn't really been tried before. This administration has no such excuse.

All of a sudden we expect people who have never in their lives had real jobs or run successful businesses tell those who have what they should be doing to be more successful.  People who have embraced economic philosophies that have failed consistently worldwide, and hate capitalism, are then expected run an entire economic system successfully.   Why would we expect these people to be successful? 

We need to get this. You can't fix stupid, and when someone ignores the obvious facts of history in order to push an agenda that has failed over and over again they are either stupid or  _____________.(fill in the blank....this is a test!) 

Also, you may wish to review last week's article, Warmers and Wilders.

"The time has come," the Walrus said,

"To talk of many things:

Of shoes, and ships, and sealing wax -

Of cabbages and kings,

And why the sea is boiling hot,

And whether pigs have wings."

###