Topic: More taxpayer multi-millions for boondoggle

[Pandora]

U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu announced last week that his agency has finalized a $90.6 million loan guarantee with Cogentrix of Alamosa, LLC for the construction of the Alamosa Solar Generating Project in south-central Colorado.

DOE’s Sept. 9 press release said the money will “support the Alamosa Solar Generating Project, a 30 megawatt High Concentration Photovoltaic power generation facility that will generate clean, emissions-free power in Colorado.”

The press release also states that Cogentrix “estimates that the project will support up to 100 construction jobs, but the company did not answer a CNSNews.com inquiry as to how many permanent jobs would be created.

The DOE has three loan guarantee programs for energy-related projects, including one under Title XVII of the Environmental Protection Act of 2005 for “a renewable energy systems project, electric power transmission systems project or leading edge biofuels project.” Under EPA law, non-commercial and “advanced technology vehicles” are also eligible for loan guarantees.

Europe is finding out this crap works only at wasting money, so how come we're supposed to be more like Europe except when we aren't?

Another Solyndra.

And Chu is another econazi kook.

http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/doe-backs-906-million-loan-build-solar-power-plant

[Libertas]

Bad ideas and wasteful spending never die, they just get aimed at a new target...

 

[Sectionhand]

As they say Down South ... " Ah believe there's a 'Colored Gentleman' in the lumber business ! "

[Libertas]

 

[ToddF]

The power plant in my hometown has a peak capacity of 290mw.  That's 10 TIMES the capacity of this project.

Think of this another way.  It would take a billion dollars to service a town of a mere 23,000.  Project that out...carry the 1...to power the entire country, the Obama way?

$13.478 trillion.

Win the Future with that one, sport.

[Alphabet Soup]

As they say Down South ... " Ah believe there's a 'Colored Gentleman' in the lumber business ! "

Uhm, we say a variation of that out west, too! 

[Libertas]

The power plant in my hometown has a peak capacity of 290mw.  That's 10 TIMES the capacity of this project.

Think of this another way.  It would take a billion dollars to service a town of a mere 23,000.  Project that out...carry the 1...to power the entire country, the Obama way?

$13.478 trillion.

Win the Future with that one, sport.

It's obvious math (among many other practical skills) are not Obama's strong suit...his strengths tend toward more traditional left-wing skills like bullsh*tting, bamboozeling and bullying...

[jpatrickham]

Economic Issues

September 14, 2011

Did Stimulus Dollars Hire the Unemployed?

"To test the effect of job incentives included in the 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (AARA), or stimulus package, researchers at the Marcatus Center conducted a survey of hundreds of firms, non-profit institutes and local governments to gather information on worker and employer behavior in response to certain provisions.  The findings include both predictable and surprising observations:

Just 42.1 percent of the workers hired at ARRA-receiving organizations after January 31, 2009, were unemployed at the time they were hired.
More were hired directly from other organizations (47.3 percent of post-ARRA workers), while a handful came from school (6.5 percent) or from outside the labor force (4.1 percent).
Only about half (47 percent) of responding ARRA-receiving organizations said it was easier to hire high-quality workers than before the financial crisis.
The rest said hiring good people was either as hard as (41 percent) or harder than (12 percent) before the financial crisis of 2008.
Another interesting finding of the study involves the 1931 law that requires government contractors to pay union-scale wages on most federal projects, known as the Davis-Bacon prevailing wage standard.  The stimulus package required this scale be used for 40 new types of projects.  According to the report:

The median respondent who reported Davis-Bacon wages were above the market level said that Davis-Bacon wages were 13.3 percent higher than market wages.
Six percent more workers could have been hired on Davis-Bacon projects, and more roads could have been repaved, more houses insulated and more levees repaired if ARRA-receiving organizations could have paid market wages.
A suspension of Davis-Bacon would perhaps have created 55,000 additional federally funded jobs.
The study ultimately concludes that attempts to target and stimulate certain industries through government spending are less effective than one might expect.  Too little attention was paid to the short-run effects of spending on hiring decisions, leaving much to be desired in some of the legislation.

Source: Garett Jones and Daniel M. Rothschild, "Did Stimulus Dollars Hire the Unemployed?  Answers to Questions about the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act," Mercatus Center, September 2011."

For text:

http://mercatus.org/sites/default/files/publication/Did_Stimulus_Dollars_Hire_The_Unemployed_Jones_Rothschild_WP34.pdf

For more on Economic Issues:

http://www.ncpa.org/sub/dpd/index.php?Article_Category=17

[charlesoakwood]

An Kingfish, bidness is good.

[charlesoakwood]

The Lost Solyndra Grant Proposal

[trapeze]

That was funny.

I especially liked the acronym for Solyndra

Shit
Outa
Luck
You
Nazi
Dirtbag
Republican
Assholes

[jpatrickham]

IT GET'S BETTER, AND BETTER, And BETTER, ECT. ECT.  

"In 2010, a federal law was passed making it illegal to use taxpayer monies to fund the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) or any organization with ties to ACORN.  Yet this August, the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) awarded Affordable Housing Centers of America (AHCOA) a $300,000 grant.

AHCOA was previously named Acorn Housing Corporation and still occupies the same Chicago office and address.  They are also using the same Data Universal Number System (DUNS) number to apply for and receive taxpayer funded grants.  DUNS numbers are unique to specific organizations and location.  For AHCOA to be legally using the same DUNS code, it legally has to be the same organization.

However, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) ruled that AHCOA separated itself from ACORN and that under the law is no longer considered to be an affiliate or allied with ACORN and therefore can legally apply for and receive taxpayer monies.

According to the executive director or the Freedom Through Justice Foundation, Dan Epstein, the GAO’s interpretation of the law is ‘twisted’, saying:"

Read more: Taxpayer Monies Illegally Funding ACORN Affiliate | Godfather Politics http://godfatherpolitics.com/1012/taxpayer-monies-illegally-funding-acorn-affiliate/#ixzz1YQLHEcjr

[Libertas]

It's the Chicago Way...

Here's My Way -

 

[jpatrickham]

It's Not Easy Subsidizing Green

By Jarrett Skorup
October 5, 2011

“The bankruptcy of ‘green jobs’ darling Solyndra is still in the news because it could cost U.S. taxpayers $535 million due to a federal ‘stimulus’ program loan guarantee. The Silicon Valley solar-panel maker’s failure comes on the heels of another ‘green’ corporate-welfare beneficiary going under, Evergreen Solar. These deals were big losers for Americans…. On top of the federal funds, Evergreen Solar received $58.6 million from the state of Massachusetts and millions more from Michigan sources, while Solyndra got $535 million in federal aid and more from California. This is, in the words of my colleague Michael LaFaive, an expensive game creating the illusion of jobs.”
 
In “It's Not Easy Subsidizing Green” (493 words), Grove City College alum (Class of ’09), former student fellow at The Center for Vision & Values, and research associate at the Mackinac Center for Public Policy—Mr. Jarrett Skorup—concludes, “State and federal governments should stop using selective economics and get out of this game altogether.”

  
Click here for more ...http://www.visionandvalues.org/2011/10/its-not-easy-subsidizing-green/