CNN reports that President Obama is not that concerned about a few billion dollars in bad loans to start-up energy technology companies.
"It would be a stunning case of bureaucratic disregard to declare victory because the government is expecting to lose 'just' $3 billion," Michigan Representative Fred Upton and Florida Representative Cliff Stearns, both Republicans, said in a joint statement. "When taxpayers are the ones paying the price, this sort of managerial soul searching should take place before billions of dollars are doled out, not after."
But President Obama has refused to apologize for the programs, saying the government should support these businesses in their early years so the country can compete with industries in other nations that lavish support on their own clean-tech sector.
"Some technologies don't pan out; some companies fail," the president said during his State of the Union address. "But I will not walk away from the promise of clean energy."
There are alternatives to the government investing in unproven alternative energy products and hoping things work out. But it would seem that rather than backing pipe dreams, let private investors decide what the market will bear and what risks are worthwhile. Then let the market reward the successful. It has worked that way for a long time so why should it have to be different now? It created the industrial revolution; it can create the energy revolution.
Oh, yes, we have an energy shortage... instigated and perpetuated by government misfits.
TUESDAY, JANUARY 31, 2012Mandating Green Wastes Green
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