Republicans point to Solyndra as evidence against Obama's jobs plan
An FBI agent stands guard outside of Solyndra headquarters in Fremont, Calif., Sept. 8, 2011, while the bureau was executing search warrants at the headquarters of the solar firm that received a $535 million loan from the federal government.
/ AP PhotoIn remarks Thursday on the Senate floor, Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., argued that Solyndra's bankruptcy this month was just another reason to fight against the president's jobs plan.
"This place was supposed to be the poster child of how the original stimulus would create jobs. Now it's bankrupt and most of its 1,100 employees are out of work," McConnell said. "And they want another stimulus?"
"Look," he added, "even if you didn't know about any of the waste or the alleged cronyism, here's the bottom line: two and a half years after the president signed the first stimulus, there are 1.7 million fewer jobs in this country, 1.7 million fewer jobs after borrowing and spending $825 billion to create them. What more do you need to know than that?"
The White House and many mainstream economists say the 2009 spending package prevented a severe recession from becoming the second Great Depression.
Sarah Palin, in a note on her Facebook page, argued that Solyndra represented another notch on the White House's "pantheon on crony capitalism," and (citing a previous speech of her own) contended that "when government picks the winners and losers, we're stuck with the losers, and we the taxpayers subsidize failure!"
"The President hailed this 'green energy' company in a speech last May as 'the true engine of economic growth.' When he announced the $535 million guarantee to Solyndra, Vice President Biden said that investments like this are 'exactly what the Recovery Act is all about,'" Palin wrote, adding: " (Dear God...If the failed Solyndra venture has been what it's "all about," then that explains a lot.)"
An investigation into Solyndra's bankruptcy has led to questions about whether or not the White House adequately vetted the half-billion-dollar loan. Reports have indicated that the Obama administration may have rushed a decision on the matter in order to be able to announce it officially at a press event, and, according to the Chicago Tribune "at least one investor in it was a prominent Obama fundraiser."
The Department of Energy, however, argues that not only was the loan not rushed, but that the application for it was actually filed under the Bush administration - and that it neared completion before Mr. Obama took office.
"By the time the Obama administration took office in late January 2009, the loan programs' staff had already established a goal of, and timeline for, issuing the company a conditional loan guarantee commitment in March 2009," said Jonathan Silver, who heads the Energy loan program, according to ABC.
Nevertheless, Energy Secretary Steven Chu said the department would look into the matter.
"We're going to be looking at that and trying to understand things, so it's too early to tell," he told reporters on Thursday.
In a press briefing, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said the president had not been briefed over the questions.
"I think he's probably read some news accounts of it," he said. "There's not a lot to brief him about."
Carney added: "There's no evidence that the White House was involved in the loan... The White House was involved in trying to find out when a decision would be made so they could make -- staff here could make a decision about the vice president's having an event."
"Anybody who travels with us or understands the sort of complexity of scheduling White House events involving the two principals, the president and the vice president, that process engages a lot of people," he added. "And there are just a whole series of decisions that have to be made regarding scheduling, whatever the nature of the event."
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A. reward a donor
B. talk about how he's creating green jobs
It's time to take out the trash in 2012.
If green jobs can stand on their own feet, I am all for them. If not, forget it. We need to reduce the increased oppressive regulations and expenses President Obama and other progressives have placed on businesses, and allow the private sector to naturally grow again. We certainly can not afford another $450 billion of deficit federal spending. President Obama wants to spend $450 billion in a temporary one year stimulus package, and then attempt to payback part of it ($400 billion) over 10 years. This is not being paid for, as he promised. It is simply pushing the cost down the road for others to pay for. President Obama's "jobs plan" reduces taxes on businesses for one year, and then increases permanent taxes hugely from then on. This smashes the crap out of private sector businesses again.
President Obama spent a lot of time going over his plan with union leaders, prior to making his speech. However, he refused to give Republicans in Congress the same courtesy of reviewing his plan for American, prior to making his speech. This was not a Presidential address, it was a political campaign speech - dressed with a Presidential address bow. Most of the jobs President Obama says are created by his bill will go to teachers, police, fire fighters, and construction workers - unions (his political supporters). He wants to use $450 billion of the public's money to pay back his supporters. All of us would like better roads and bridges, but we simply can not afford any more nonsense from this administration.
"We're going to do everything - and I mean everything we can do - to kill it, stop it, slow it down, whatever we can." - John Boehner (R-OH)
"The single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president." -Mitch McConnell (R-KY)
Or do you just get a kick out of pasting a post from other sources? If you can't express your own thoughts find something else to do.
President Obama and other progressives have done more to damage this nation than at any time I can remember.
Many good things happen on President Obama's watch, e.g., CBO confirms the "American Recovery and Reinvestment Act" (ARRA -- Obama's 1st stimulus) had positive effects on the US economy. In a report "Estimated Impact of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act on Employment and Economic Output from January 2011 Through March 2011" CBO says ARRA had the following effects through Qtr1 of calendar year 2011:
Raised real (inflation-adjusted) gross domestic product (GDP) by between 1.1 percent and 3.1 percent
Lowered the unemployment rate by between 0.6 percentage points and 1.8 percentage points
Increased the number of people employed by between 1.2 million and 3.3 million, and
Increased the number of full-time-equivalent jobs by 1.6 million to 4.6 million compared with what would have occurred otherwise, as shown in Table 1 (Increases in FTE jobs include shifts from part-time to full-time work or overtime and are thus generally larger than increases in the number of employed workers.)
Quite a reversal from GW Bush & crew's dismal job loss record (700,000+/month & 7.8million+ total) when they slinked out of Washington DC. While subsequent data indicates Bush's 2008 recession & economic mess was worse than originally estimated, things would have been far worse without Obama's 1st stimulus.
The full CBO report is at:
http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/121xx/doc12185/05-25-ARRA.pdf
10 Disastrous aspects of the Affordable Health Care Law:
1) Democrats cut $400 billion from Medicare, in an attempt to pay for it.
2) Still, it costs taxpayers $105 billion each year in new additional federal spending and it is part of why there is such massive deficit spending.
3) It results in health care premiums going up for the majority of Americans. You can't get something for nothing. If you cover pre-existing conditions, cover high risk people, and expand federal departments to handle the huge administrative work this causes - it costs a lot of money. It results in the premiums going up for everyone. Americans who practice healthy lifestyles will have to pay for those who do not. (How fair is this?)
4) It will impose huge expenses on businesses by 2014 (that is why businesses making a profit are not hiring people right now - they are saving up to handle the expense).
5) It results in businesses electing to have employees work overtime, rather than hire additional employees. The law imposes huge expense for each worker, so it is financially easier for businesses to just have people work more hours than to hire another worker.
6) It imposes $billions of unfunded mandates on states to increase Medicaid coverage (at a time when states can hardly make it financially - that is why 27 states are suing the federal government over it).
7) The law is filled with fees on medical devices, including pacemakers. It drives up the costs of medicine in the United States.
8) It imposes new taxes (which the law says are not to be called "taxes"). I haven't read the entire law, but I read enough of it to make me want to puke.
9) For the first time, the federal government requires ALL American citizens to purchase a service (health care) or be fined. (Can you feel the love?)
10) Americans were promised open discussions, aired on CSPAN, prior to its passage. Instead, deals were cut behind closed doors and it was totally a partisan effort by Democrats. Republicans were totally shut out of the formation of this law, and therefore half the American population was shut out. Then, and now, the majority of Americans are against this horrible law.
AP) End tax breaks that reward some U.S. companies with overseas subsidiaries and encourage those businesses to create jobs in other countries, President Barack Obama is telling Congress.
Yet it's an idea that has raised concerns even among some lawmakers in the president's own party.
At issue is a bill, now stalled in the Senate, that would do away with some tax credits and deferrals for U.S. companies for operations abroad.
"There is no reason why our tax code should actively reward them for creating jobs overseas," Mr. Obama said in his weekly radio and Internet address Saturday. "Instead, we should be using our tax dollars to reward companies that create jobs and businesses within our borders."
Though President Obama singled out Republican opposition, the bill also failed to get support from some Democrats, including the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont. He has expressed concern that the change would put the U.S. at a competitive disadvantage.
The ending of the tax provisions has run into opposition from business groups, including the National Association of Manufacturers.
Mr. Obama said that while companies that conduct business internationally do make an important contribution to the U.S. economy, it doesn't make sense to grant them tax breaks when companies at home are struggling to rebound from the economic crisis.
President Obama has said he wants revenue collected from ending the tax provisions to go to other business tax breaks, by making permanent research and development tax credits and allowing businesses next year to write off all new equipment costs.
In the GOP address, Rep. Mike Pence, R-Ind., urged House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., to call Congress back into session to take an immediate vote on whether to extend Bush-era tax cuts.
"The prosperity of the American people is more important than the political fortunes of any politician or any political party," Pence said.
Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., have said the tax issue will be taken up after the Nov. 2 election.
The tax cuts have been a point of contention between the president and Republicans in the lead-up to the midterm elections. The GOP wants to extend the tax cuts for all Americans, including the top income earners, while Obama wants to extend the tax cuts only for the middle class - those families earning less than $250,000 a year.
By Associated Press Writer Julie Pace
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/10/16/politics/main6964121.shtml
If the companies do well, they won't need to draw on the guarantees and won't cost the government anything. But if the companies go bankrupt, as Solyndra did, taxpayers will be on the hook. Moreover, the Treasury Department's Federal Financing Bank has been directly lending — at extremely low, subsidized rates — to companies that win Energy Department guarantees. Congress and the administration assumed a failure rate of 5 to 10 percent for the program. Solyndra represents about 3 percent of the loan guarantees made so far.
The loan guarantee program can also be unwieldy. It works like this: Companies negotiate with the Energy Department for a government loan guarantee, which means taxpayers will pay off bank loans if the project fails. Then the Office of Management and Budget must sign off on the guarantees, often changing terms.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2011/09/15/politics/washingtonpost/main20106713.shtml?tag=exclsv
Go ahead. Be shortsighted. This country is finished, just ****** of the shortsighted whims of corporations and fast profits.
A multi-billion dollar the pharmaceutical company sends people to visit the Texas Governor mansion many times and gives him more than $28,000 which he lies about and says they only gave him $5,000.
Perry responded, "I helped them earn about $30 million."
Does ANYONE see a problem here?
Rule #3; "Whenever possible, go outside the expertise of the enemy. Look for ways to increase insecurity, anxiety and uncertainty. (This happens all the time. Watch how many organizations under attack are blind-sided by seemingly irrelevant arguments that they are then forced to address.)
This is an open discussion, OPEN TO ALL.
This means many different views, read rules of engagement, this means no insults.