"Forty years ago, climate scientists were warning of an impending ice age. Now it's man-made global warming. But what about the warming on Mars? I'm pretty certain my SUV is not responsible for that. In fact, the latest evidence once again confirms common sense -- that big, bright, hot, yellow ball in the sky called the sun really is the major influence in the solar system.
But for the sake of argument, let's concede the point for a moment. Even if the planet really does have a fever, the left still doesn't have the solution. Alternative energy simply cannot supply all the demands of our economy. If you cap the use of fossil fuels, the tradeoff is less economic growth. And the economics of this are settled.
Exhibit A -- The Recession. While pushing for his cap and trade bill in 2009, Sen. John Kerry indirectly embraced the recession. Kerry said, "Let me emphasize something very strongly as we begin this discussion. The United States has already this year alone achieved a 6 percent reduction in emissions simply because of the downturn in the economy, so we are effectively saying we need to go another 14 percent." So take it from John Kerry -- lower emissions equals a shrinking economy.
Exhibit B -- Subsidies. As the saying goes, money speaks, and the subsidies for alternative energy speak volumes. Alternative fuels are tremendously expensive, and receive approximately 80% of all federal energy subsidies. When evaluated on the basis of the amount of energy produced, "renewable subsidies are 49 times greater than fossil fuel subsidies."
Exhibit C -- The Green Jobs Myth. Barack Obama spent billions of your hard-earned tax dollars in his stimulus bill to create so-called "green jobs." The White House claims that "225,000 clean energy jobs were either created or preserved" through the stimulus bill. That's $355,000 per job. The rest have apparently gone to China. Here and here.
Recently, Solyndra, a stimulus-funded solar panel company, declared bankruptcy. Last year, Obama visited the company and hailed it as the "future of clean energy." Like so many of Obama's promises, Solyndra went bust.
Today it is being reported that the FBI has raided the company's headquarters. It's not immediately clear why, but it may have something to do with the fact that several of the companies big investors and top executives made repeated trips to the White House to lobby for more than half a billion dollars of your money. As it turns out, one of them was a major Democrat donor who raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for Obama's campaign.
Let's hope today's news puts an end to the "green jobs" scam."
Campaign for Working Families
Posts
