Welcome Guest [Log In] [Register]
Add Reply
Leveraging a Hurricane; Craft & Corruption - Green Cars over Aid
Topic Started: Sep 3 2011, 04:54 PM (108 Views)
Baldo
Member Avatar

Leveraging a Hurricane

The real story behind the political theater over disaster relief.


Rahm Emanuel may have decamped to Chicago, but Democrats in Washington still won't let a good crisis go to waste. Their current gambit is to use Hurricane Irene as a pretext to prevent spending cuts to one of Washington's most notorious boondoggles.

This week the left-wing press has been attacking House Majority Leader Eric Cantor for holding disaster relief funding "hostage." A more accurate way to put this is that Senate Democrats won't approve new funding for disasters unless they get the funding they want for corporations that make electric cars.

Here's the story: In June, House Republicans passed the 2012 Homeland Security appropriations bill, which included an amendment adding $1 billion to the Disaster Relief Fund of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). In a sensible move for taxpayers, the amendment offsets this new disaster funding by cutting spending on the Advanced Technology Vehicles Manufacturing Loan Program. This may ring a bell with readers as the funding conduit for one of Washington's adventures in crony capitalism.

In 2009, the Department of Energy announced that it would loan more than half a billion dollars through this program to a California-based company, Fisker Automotive, to make luxury electric cars. About a month after the loan package was conditionally approved, CEO Henrik Fisker and Joseph Biden appeared in the Vice President's hometown of Wilmington, Delaware to announce that Fisker would now be making some of its cars at the city's old General Motors factory.

At the event, Mr. Biden described many "long talks" he'd had with Mr. Fisker. The Vice President's office later said that Mr. Biden didn't make any direct appeals to Energy before the loan was approved, but Delaware's chief of economic development told the Journal that Mr. Biden was the state's "secret weapon, except there is nothing secret about Joe Biden."


All of this is background to say that the GOP has found the federal program that is arguably the most deserving of a cut to free up funds for disaster victims. But Senate Democrats refuse to pass the House bill and Mr. Cantor has earned their ire this week by continuing to press for cuts in corporate welfare.

Perhaps unwilling to defend the indefensible, some have taken to claiming that the Republican bill cuts cherished liberal entitlements. In an email seeking donations for an anti-Cantor advertising campaign, the group Democracy for America exalted, "We're hitting Eric Cantor hard—exposing his call to hold Hurricane Irene disaster relief hostage to more cuts in vital programs, like Medicare and Social Security—with in-district ads all next week."

In the Senate, Illinois Democrat Dick Durbin seems unwilling to accept even the idea that the government might set priorities and choose to fund disaster aid instead of other claims on the federal fisc. "If [Mr. Cantor] believes that we can nip and tuck at the rest of the federal budget and somehow take care of disasters, he's totally out of touch with reality," said Mr. Durbin.

One reason the House bill has less funding for Democratic priorities is because, even before the hurricane, Republicans had decided that the President's budget didn't have enough money for the Disaster Relief Fund. So they funded it at $850 million above the President's request. Then as they realized that the damage in places like Joplin, Missouri would put additional strain on the fund, the GOP added the amendment that provided still more disaster assistance and cut funding for Mr. Biden's beloved electric cars....snipped

...By the way, this political theater is having no impact on victims in need of help. The MSNBC gang may like to pretend that Mr. Cantor is stealing blankets from homeless flood victims, but the Washington debate is largely about funding for construction projects that may be years in the future.

Yes, FEMA has warned that its disaster fund is running low, a warning it issues almost annually. And the agency has said it won't approve new municipal construction projects until it gets more funding. But rebuilding, for example, a bridge in Vermont likely couldn't happen for months or years anyway as the locals debate designs, approve plans and conduct environmental reviews. The agency's emergency assistance—water and generators, or money for new windows or clothing—continues without interruption.

To have any hope of controlling spending, Congress has to make choices. That means having the fortitude to give up more corporate welfare to finance more urgent disaster relief.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111904583204576542770484363328.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEADTop


Edited by Baldo, Sep 3 2011, 05:03 PM.
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Baldo
Member Avatar

Now this deal is a real mind-boggier

Fisker Automotive is an American automaker based in Anaheim, California

An estimated 15,000 cars per year will be assembled by Valmet Automotive in Uusikaupunki, Finland

Gore-Backed Car Firm Gets Large U.S. Loan

SEPTEMBER 25, 2009

WASHINGTON -- A tiny car company backed by former Vice President Al Gore has just gotten a $529 million U.S. government loan to help build a hybrid sports car in Finland that will sell for about $89,000.

The award this week to California startup Fisker Automotive Inc. follows a $465 million government loan to Tesla Motors Inc., purveyors of a $109,000 British-built electric Roadster. Tesla is a California startup focusing on all-electric vehicles, with a number of celebrity endorsements that is backed by investors that have contributed to Democratic campaigns....snipped
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125383160812639013.html


However a requirement of the government loan is that some of the money be spent building or renovating a manufacturing facility in the US, in order to ensure manufacturing jobs are not shipped overseas. Fisker fulfilled its obligation by purchasing GM's former Wilmington Assembly plant in Delaware for $20 million, and plans to start production of its next generation Electric Vehicles with extended range there in late 2012. The company expects to create more than 2,000 jobs there. Building a new plant would have cost well over $1B.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fisker_Automotive#cite_note-6


I can pretty much guess what is going to happen. The Solyndra Solar Power bankruptcy is just one of many ways to steal money from the Taxpayers and we have the US Govt competing to the Volt by subsidizing electric car industry which looks to be heading to a Massive Flop.

My image of Obama & Biden creating the 80 Billion Green Stimulus would make Cheech & Chong Movie seem tame. Like our borrowed money

"Up in Smoke!"

Folks I know its preliminary but much of the Stimulus appears to have just been a massive scam on us.
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Baldo
Member Avatar

This is a must Read "How the Stimulus Is Changing America" Aug. 26, 2010

Little did "Time Magazine understands that one year later Obama's great plan would be such a failure.



"Let's Just Go Build It!"


After Obama's election, Depression scholar Christina Romer delivered a freak-out briefing to his transition team, warning that to avoid a 1930s-style collapse, Washington needed to pump at least $800 billion into the frozen economy — and fast. "We were in a tailspin," recalls Romer, who is about to step down as chair of Obama's Council of Economic Advisers. "I was completely sympathetic to the idea that we shouldn't just dig ditches and fill them in. But saving the economy had to be paramount." Obama's economists argued for tax cuts and income transfers to get cash circulating quickly, emergency aid to states to prevent layoffs of cops and teachers and off-the-shelf highway projects to put people to work. They wanted a textbook Keynesian response to an economy in cardiac arrest: adding money to existing programs via existing formulas or handing it to governors, seniors and first-time home buyers. They weren't keen to reinvent the wheel.

But Obama and Biden also saw a golden opportunity to address priorities; they emphasized shovel-worthy as well as shovel-ready. Biden recalls brainstorming with Obama about an all-in push for a smarter electrical grid that would reduce blackouts, promote renewables and give families more control over their energy diet: "We said, 'God, wouldn't it be wonderful? Why don't we invest $100 billion? Let's just go build it!' " ...snipped

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,2013826,00.html

Sorry if this insults anyone, but Obama & Biden are just idiots. Just #*&*%$ effing idiots. That is what you get when two fools who have never run a business have a blank check and a willing Democratic Congress
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
kbp

Baldo
Sep 3 2011, 05:28 PM
This is a must Read "How the Stimulus Is Changing America" Aug. 26, 2010

Little did "Time Magazine understands that one year later Obama's great plan would be such a failure.



"Let's Just Go Build It!"


After Obama's election, Depression scholar Christina Romer delivered a freak-out briefing to his transition team, warning that to avoid a 1930s-style collapse, Washington needed to pump at least $800 billion into the frozen economy — and fast. "We were in a tailspin," recalls Romer, who is about to step down as chair of Obama's Council of Economic Advisers. "I was completely sympathetic to the idea that we shouldn't just dig ditches and fill them in. But saving the economy had to be paramount." Obama's economists argued for tax cuts and income transfers to get cash circulating quickly, emergency aid to states to prevent layoffs of cops and teachers and off-the-shelf highway projects to put people to work. They wanted a textbook Keynesian response to an economy in cardiac arrest: adding money to existing programs via existing formulas or handing it to governors, seniors and first-time home buyers. They weren't keen to reinvent the wheel.

But Obama and Biden also saw a golden opportunity to address priorities; they emphasized shovel-worthy as well as shovel-ready. Biden recalls brainstorming with Obama about an all-in push for a smarter electrical grid that would reduce blackouts, promote renewables and give families more control over their energy diet: "We said, 'God, wouldn't it be wonderful? Why don't we invest $100 billion? Let's just go build it!' " ...snipped

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,2013826,00.html

Sorry if this insults anyone, but Obama & Biden are just idiots. Just #*&*%$ effing idiots. That is what you get when two fools who have never run a business have a blank check and a willing Democratic Congress
I seem to agree with you!
Online Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
1 user reading this topic (1 Guest and 0 Anonymous)
« Previous Topic · LIESTOPPERS UNDERGROUND · Next Topic »
Add Reply