Throwing good money after bad

The Daley Gator:

New Obama ‘Green Jobs’ To Cost $135,295 Each – Washington Examiner

President Obama’s announcement earlier today of an additional $2.3 billion in federal tax credits for creating approximately 17,000 subsidized temporary jobs in the green energy industry is drawing a less than enthusiastic response from Thomas J. Pyle, president of the Institute for Energy Research:

“Show me one other industry that requests and receives a nearly 30 percent taxpayer subsidy. That’s what the wind and solar industries require – at a minimum – to exist. All the president did today is throw more money at an unproven technology that is not economically viable in the marketplace. Unfortunately, the only winners in this latest taxpayer giveaway will be Wall Street money managers and corporate interests in the wind and solar industry.

“If the president really wants to create an environment that will foster economic growth and job creation, he need not look any further than the domestic oil, gas and coal industries. These three industries and energy sources built this nation. For the administration to continue to ignore this fact and to keep the vast resources that taxpayers own under lock and key at the Department of Interior is irresponsible and a disservice to the American people.

One imagines that there must be a money tree growing somewhere in the Rose Garden.  After all, why would the President favor spending $2.3 billion dollars to create a mere 17,000 temporary jobs unless he has an endless supply of money that none of us are aware of?

If President Obama were in the least bit interested in expanding employment he would back off health care reform that has caused uncertainty among the nation's employers, cut taxes for the country's businesses, both small and large alike, and do away with regulations that impede expansion by the country's industries.  Unfortunately, the President would rather push an agenda than deal with the problems that now rest squarely on his shoulders.

President Obama's butt-kissing of special interest groups, in the case the "green" lobby, is digging us further and further down in an economic hole.   The President's policies do little to encourage risk taking or innovation, both the hallmarks of a vibrant economy, but instead, he is using his position to reward his political backers.

"To the victor goes the spoils" may be a viable political ploy in Chicago (though apparently not) but it stinks as a model for leadership.