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How well did Obama’s green jobs spending work out for taxpayers?

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From Investor’s Business Daily.

Excerpt:

As solar panel manufacturer Solyndra was sliding into a long-predicted bankruptcy, Energy Department officials began negotiations with the company and two of its main investors about restructuring its $535 million loan to keep afloat the business that was supposed to be a good investment.

Under the restructuring agreement, Solyndra’s private investors were moved to the front of the line and taxpayers were put on the hook for at least the first $75 million if the company should default. Subordinating taxpayers to private investors in recovering loan money is an “apparent violation of the law,” according to Fred Upton, R-Mich., chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee.

During hearings last week, Rep. Steve Scalise, R-La., and other Republicans noted that the Energy Policy Act of 2005 says obligations, or loan guarantees, shall not be subordinated to other financing.

In other words, taxpayers get first dibs on any money recovered and private investors take a number.

Why was the Solyndra loan restructured in this way? Was it because a major donation bundler for President Obama’s 2008 campaign was also a principal investor in Solyndra? Is that why the administration ignored repeated warning’s of Solyndra’s insolvency?

A 2009 report by the Energy Department’s inspector general warned that DOE lacked the necessary quality control for the $38.6 billion loan-guarantee program. In July 2010, the Government Accountability Office said DOE had bypassed required steps for funding awards to five of 10 loan recipients.

[…]Solyndra was the third U.S. solar manufacturer to fail in a month. SpectraWatt Inc., a solar company backed by units of Intel Corp. and Goldman Sachs Group Inc., filed for bankruptcy protection Aug. 19, and Evergreen Solar filed Chapter 11 on Aug. 15.

Other failed companies receiving stimulus funds include Mountain Plaza Inc., which took $424,000 in grants to install “truck stop electrification systems” so truckers could plug in and shut off their idling diesel engines, and Olsen’s Crop Service and Olsen’s Acquisition Co., which were handed $10 million.

[…]The administration claims that as a whole this loan guarantee program, which was supposed to create 65,000 jobs, was a success, creating or “saving” some 44,000 jobs. An analysis by the Washington Post says the actual number of permanent jobs created is 3,545.

[…]Even if you accept the administration’s questionable job accounting, divide the $38.6 billion by 65,000 and ask yourself if the administration is spending your money wisely — or honestly.

The Obama administration has already spent about half of the 38.6 billion set aside for Democrat cronies. I mean green energy. If you divide 17.5 billion by 3,545 jobs created, that’s $5 million per job. That’s sound Democrat fiscal policy. Bible-thumping morons like Sarah Palin and Michele Bachmann could never think of intelligent policies like spending $5 million per job created. To get to that level of intelligence, you need to have degrees from Columbia and Harvard Law School (grades never released). And to vote for Obama’s policies, you need to be smart enough to watch the Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert on the Comedy Channel, and think that it’s news.

So we took billions of dollars out of the private economy, in order to punish those evil oil companies and coal companies, and we spent it on magic beans – sold to us by Obama’s Democrat cronies. Instead of lowering energy prices, Obama’s policies have resulted in higher energy prices. Was this unexpected?

Actually, for anyone who was paying attention, Obama made clear that he was OK with higher energy prices before he was elected in 2008.

And that’s what we got:

Gas Prices under Obama and Bush
Gas Prices under Obama and Bush

Only two kinds of people voted for Obama in 2008 – the people who were informed about Obama’s record by watching Ed Schultz and Rachel Maddow on MSNBC, and the people who were about to receive stimulus grants for the green energy companies. The people who think that Michael Moore tells the truth about health care, and that Al Gore is an authority on climate science. The people who think that the New York Times is unbiased news.

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Social liberal Mitt Romney refuses to sign pro-marriage pledge

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Mitt Romney is a RINO - Republican In Name Only
Mitt Romney is a RINO - Republican In Name Only

Socially liberal, fiscally moderate Mitt Romney refuses to sign a pro-marriage pledge.

Excerpt:

Last week, the Family Leader, a conservative pro-family group in Iowa, asked Republican presidential candidates to sign a pledge endorsing traditional marriage and other social issues. Michele Bachmann was the first to say she would sign it. Mitt Romney has decided not to. Tim Pawlenty hasn’t announced his decision.

That tells you something important about the battle for the Republican presidential nomination and the box in which Pawlenty now finds himself. Two months ago, he believed he was in a strong position to break out and become the principal alternative to front-runner Romney. Today he is trying to figure out how to prevent Bachmann from blocking his path.

[…]The calculus for Romney was the opposite, but not necessarily more difficult. Neither winning Iowa nor becoming the favored candidate of social and religious conservatives is part of his strategy for capturing the nomination or the presidency. He wants support from those values voters, but, as with others who have won the GOP nomination, he is not willing to pay any price to get it.

Here’s the pledge.

Naturally, Michele Bachmann was the first to sign it – because she is actually a social conservative.

Is Mitt Romney a social conservative?

Here’s a video of Mitt Romney expressing his social conservative credentials: (H/T Robb)

Just to refresh you, Mitt Romney also refused to sign the pro-life pledge authored by the Susan B. Anthony List. Michele Bachmann signed it, of course. Because Michele Bachmann is solid on social issues, and is a pro-life and pro-marriage activist. She doesn’t just make speeches – she has acted. It’s in her public record.

And of course Mitt Romney was praised by Al Gore for his global warming views. Seriously.

And Mitt Romney passed the Massachusetts equivalent of Obamacare, which is now way over budget. He’s not even a solid fiscal conservative.

News

How Barack Obama gave top campaign donors government jobs

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Left-leaning Politico reports on corruption, cronyism, nepotism and patronage appointments in the Obama administration.

Excerpt:

Telecom executive Donald H. Gips raised a big bundle of cash to help finance his friend Barack Obama’s run for the presidency.

Gips, a vice president of Colorado-based Level 3 Communications, delivered more than $500,000 in contributions for the Obama war chest, while two other company executives collected at least $150,000 more.

After the election, Gips was put in charge of hiring in the Obama White House, helping to place loyalists and fundraisers in many key positions. Then, in mid-2009, Obama named him ambassador to South Africa. Meanwhile, Level 3 Communications, in which Gips retained stock, received millions of dollars of government stimulus contracts for broadband projects in six states — though Gips said he had been “completely unaware” that the company had received the contracts.

More than two years after Obama took office vowing to banish “special interests” from his administration, nearly 200 of his biggest donors have landed plum government jobs and advisory posts, won federal contracts worth millions of dollars for their business interests or attended numerous elite White House meetings and social events, an investigation by iWatch News has found.

These “bundlers” raised at least $50,000 — and sometimes more than $500,000 — in campaign donations for Obama’s campaign. Many of those in the “Class of 2008” are now being asked to bundle contributions for Obama’s reelection, an effort that could cost $1 billion.

As a candidate, Obama spoke passionately about diminishing the clout of moneyed interests. Kicking off his presidential run on Feb. 10, 2007, he blasted “the cynics, the lobbyists, the special interests,” who had “turned our government into a game only they can afford to play.”

“We’re here today to take it back,” he said.

Say one thing in public, and do the opposite in private. Don’t believe the words of a candidate in their stump speeches. Look at their voting record, and their legislative initiatives, and their ratings from non-partisan organizations, such as the Club For Growth, Citizens Against Government Waste, and the National Taxpayer’s Union. Don’t vote based on pleasant sounding words and pleasant appearances, do the research.