Fact check: Are half of ‘green’ energy firms helped by stimulus out of business?


CNN has the article Fact check: Are half of ‘green’ energy firms helped by stimulus out of business?

The Department of Energy proudly touts that the 2009 stimulus authorized $90 billion “in government investments and tax incentives to lay the foundation for the clean energy economy of our future.”

But not all that money has been spent, and not all of it — in fact, not even half of it — is being directed to upstart green businesses.
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It is fair to say that the 2009 stimulus authorized $90 billion for green energy, as Romney asserted. Whether or not one terms these as “breaks” is subjective, and one shouldn’t assume that all the funds went to specific businesses like Solyndra.

Most of the large projects that benefited from the Department of Energy loan program remain in operation — contrary to Romney’s assertion that “almost half” of them had closed.

This is another example  of Romney’s claims that just do not add up.  In my previous post, Romney’s Magic Plans, I pointed out why it is easy to have a plan that sounds great if you don’t insist that it be feasible.  Another analogy is that Romney is more like the snake oil salesmen that used to travel the country with their medicine shows – a little entertainment and then a hard sell of fake cure-alls.

I must admit, Romney is pretty good at it.  He did build himself a quarter billion dollar fortune selling his medicine to the “investment” world.

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