Tag Archives: Taxpayer

News

Obama gives $529 million loan to firm that outsources manufacturing to Finland

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From ABC News. (H/T Doug Ross Journal)

Excerpt:

With the approval of the Obama administration, an electric car company that received a $529 million federal government loan guarantee is assembling its first line of cars in Finland, saying it could not find a facility in the United States capable of doing the work.

Vice President Joseph Biden heralded the Energy Department’s $529 million loan to the start-up electric car company called Fisker as a bright new path to thousands of American manufacturing jobs. But two years after the loan was announced, the job of assembling the flashy electric Fisker Karma sports car has been outsourced to Finland.

[…]The loan to Fisker is part of a $1 billion bet the Energy Department has made in two politically connected California-based electric carmakers producing sporty — and pricey — cutting-edge autos. Fisker Automotive, backed by a powerhouse venture capital firm whose partners include former Vice President Al Gore, predicts it will eventually be churning out tens of thousands of electric sports sedans at the shuttered GM factory it bought in Delaware. And Tesla Motors, whose prime backers include PayPal mogul Elon Musk and Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, says it will do the same in a massive facility tooling up in Silicon Valley.

An investigation by ABC News and the Center for Public Integrity’s iWatch News that will air on “Good Morning America” found that the DOE’s bet carries risks for taxpayers, has raised concern among industry observers and government auditors, and adds to questions about the way billions of dollars in loans for smart cars and green energy companies have been awarded. Fisker is more than a year behind rolling out its $97,000 luxury vehicle bankrolled in part with DOE money. While more are promised soon, just 40 of its Karma cars (below) have been manufactured and only two delivered to customers’ driveways, including one to movie star Leonardo DiCaprio. Tesla’s SEC filings reveal the start-up has lost money every quarter. And while its federal funding is intended to help it mass produce a new $57,400 Model S sedan, the company has no experience in a project so vast.

Doug Ross’ post linked to a description of the car’s features:

Yikes. The EPA has finally released its official fuel economy rating for the Fisker Karma, and it’s not high: just 52 MPGe, an all-electric range of 32 miles and 20 miles per gallon on gasoline when the battery runs dry. This is well below the numbers that Fisker reps were bandying about in past years: 67.2 mpge and an all-electric range of 50 miles.

The Wall Street Journal explains who stands to gain from these taxpayer-funded loans.

Excerpt:

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.

[…]Kalee Kreider, a spokeswoman for Mr. Gore, confirmed that the former vice president backs Fisker and purchased a Karma. “He believes that a global shift of the automobile fleet toward electric vehicles, accompanying a shift toward renewable-energy generation, represents an important part of a sensible strategy for solving the climate crisis,” she said in a statement.

Fisker’s top investors include Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, a veteran Silicon Valley venture-capital firm of which Gore is a partner. Employees of KPCB have donated more than $2.2 million to political campaigns, mostly for Democrats, including President Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, a nonpartisan group that tracks campaign contributions.

Officials at Kleiner Perkins didn’t return requests for comment.

We have been in a massive economic downturn that started when Nancy Pelosi took the gavel from John Boehner in January of 2007. And this is what the Democrats have been doing?

News

House passes bill to block taxpayer funds from being used for abortions

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From Life News.

Excerpt:

The House approved legislation, the Protect Life Act, to stop abortion funding in Obamacare. Senate Democrats are not expected to approve the bill and, pro-abortion President Barack Obama is expected to veto the measure if it reaches his desk.

Members voted 251-172 for the pro-life legislation, with 236 Republicans and 15 Democrats supporting the bill and 170 Democrats and two Republicans voting against it. (See how your member voted here).

H.R. 358, Protect Life Act, makes it clear that no funds authorized or appropriated by the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA), including tax credits and cost-sharing reductions, may be used to pay for abortion or abortion coverage. It specifies that individual people or state or local governments must purchase a separate elective abortion rider or insurance coverage that includes elective abortion but only as long as that is done with private funds and not monies authorized by Obamacare.

[…]The bill also specifies that insurance issuers may offer health plans that include elective abortion and may offer separate elective abortion riders, so long as they ensure PPACA funds are not used for premiums or administrative costs. The bill also clarifies that issuers who offer elective abortion coverage must also offer a qualified health benefits plan that is identical except that it does not cover elective abortion.

The pro-life measure also ensures that state laws “protecting conscience rights, restricting or prohibiting abortion or coverage or funding of abortion, or establishing procedural requirements on abortion” are not abrogated by Obamacare. It also makes it so any state or local governments receiving funding under Obamacare may not subject any health care entity to discrimination or require any health plan to subject any entity to discrimination on the basis that it refuses to undergo abortion training, refuses to require abortion training, refuses to perform or pay for abortions, or refuses to provide abortion referrals.

The Democrats will block this bill in the Senate, or Obama will not sign it if it somehow gets through. And do you know why? Because the Democrats are committing to subsidizing baby-killing with taxpayer dollars. Pro-life taxpayer dollars.

Nancy Pelosi doesn’t like the bill. She thinks that this bill will cause women to “die on the floor”.

Excerpt:

Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi took her pro-abortion rhetoric to a new level, today saying Republicans “want women to die on the floor” in expressing her opposition to a bill stopping taxpayer funding of abortions in Obamacare.

“For a moment, I want to get back to what was asked about the issue on the floor today that Mr. Hoyer address,” Pelosi said. “He made a point and I want to emphasize it. Under this bill, when the Republicans vote for this bill today, they will be voting to say that women can die on the floor and health care providers do not have to intervene if this bill is passed. It’s just appalling.”

This is the same woman ran up 5.34 trillion dollars of debt while she was Speaker of the House from 2007 to 2011. The Republicans want to stop spending taxpayer money on elective abortion to stop the national debt from growing, and this woman thinks that not spending that money would cause people to die on the floor. I wonder if we will ever get spending cut when people on the left use rhetoric like this to stop spending cuts.

I do think it is encouraging that nearly all Republicans voted for this bill. They truly are a pro-life party.

Nancy Pelosi: Republicans Want Women To Die On The Floor

News

Will McGuinty revive plan for no-parental-notification, no-opt out sex education?

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Remember a while when I blogged about the Ontario Liberal government’s plan to push sex education onto kindergarden and elementary children, with no parental notification and no opt-out option for parents? The end result of that was that Dalton McGuinty, the Liberal leader, backed down. But, apparently there is an election going on up there, and McGuinty might get another chance to appease his gay-rights special interest groups with some new education proposals put forward by the Toronto District School Board.

Here’s Michael Coren explaining: (H/T Blazing Cat Fur)

Brian Lilley interviews a Toronto pastor about McGuinty’s plan: (H/T Blazing Cat Fur)

Prince Albert now explains what’s in the proposed standards:

Excerpt:

As the Ontario election campaign moved into the final two weeks Friday, Dalton McGuinty, the self-proclaimed education premier, was accused of keeping parents in the dark about a new policy to combat homophobia in schools.

The Toronto District School Board developed a 219-page curriculum resource guide for the new school year to cover kindergarten through Grade 12 called “Challenging Homophobia and Heterosexism.”

Among other things, it recommends schools not advise parents when teachers will be introducing concepts such as gender discrimination, homophobia and non-traditional families in the classroom.

[…]The school board guide recommends schools not send home notes or permission slips before starting any class work on lesbian, gay, bisexual transgendered or queer issues.

If a school treats sexual orientation or anti-homophobia differently from the other curriculum topics “this could be construed as discriminatory practice,” concludes the curriculum guide.

The guide also says there should be no accommodations for parents who want their children exempted from the anti-homophobia discussions because of religious reasons or for teachers who feel it contradicts their beliefs.

“If a parent asks for his or her child to be exempted for any discussions of LGBTQ family issues as a religious accommodation, this request cannot be made because it violates the human rights policy,” states the guide.

I think that this proposal will become Ontario law if the Ontario Liberal Party wins the election on October 6th.

McGuinty is also pushing the cap-and-trade carbon tax, which will wreck the Canadian economy even more by raising the price of electricity even higher than he already has raised it, with his existing green energy policies.