Obama's
Green Robber Barons
By
Michelle Malkin
1/25/2012
Had
enough of fat cat Barack Obama, his jet-setting wife and his multi-millionaire
Chicago consigliere/real-estate mogul Valerie Jarrett attacking the
"rich"? Well, brace yourselves. You'll be hearing much more from the
White House about the "wealthy few" who aren't paying their
"fair share" as Obama's re-election campaign doubles down on
class-war demagoguery.
As
usual, there's always a set of immunity charms for the privileged friends and
family of the ruling class. When it comes to all the Green Robber Barons who've
reaped an obscenely unfair share of billions of tax dollars from the Obama
administration, the envy trumpeteers will be quieter than a nest of mute church
mice.
Obama's
State of the Union address defiantly pitched a new round of clean energy spending
orgies to help the "middle class." But how have the serial
bankruptcies and near-bankruptcies of several federally subsidized solar
companies -- all under Obama's watch -- helped anyone but an upper-crust elite
of eco-crats and their lobbyists and consultants?
Bankrupt
Solyndra, billionaire George Kaiser. In the wake of the half-billion-dollar
Solyndra stimulus bust, company officials revealed plans to hand out hefty
bonuses totaling $500,000. Months before the politically connected solar energy
manufacturer went belly up, it was doling out bonus payments of between $40,000
and $60,000 to several executives. Last week, a local CBS News crew caught
employees at the Silicon Valley headquarters trashing solar panel glass tubes
worth an estimated $10 million.
The
now-abandoned Taj Mahal complex cost ordinary Americans more than $733 million.
But billionaire Democratic donor and frequent White House guest George Kaiser,
whose nonprofit foundation was Solyndra's biggest investor, is still sitting
pretty. He and the other private investors of Solyndra will recoup their losses
ahead of taxpayers. And while they blast their GOP opponents, double-standard
Democrats will remain AWOL on the glaring tax-avoidance strategies of the
wealthy Kaiser Family Foundation.
Bankrupt
Beacon Power, fat Democratic coffers. This green energy storage plant filed for
bankruptcy last fall after a $43 million injection of Obama Department of
Energy loan guarantees. Federal election record filings show that CEO William
Capp contributed to the 2008 Obama campaign, as well as several left-wing New
England Democratic candidates. Beacon Power lobbyist Steve Wolfe was a former
aide to the late Sen. Ted Kennedy. Beacon sought bankruptcy shelter two days
after the White House responded to fiscal watchdogs' demands for a review of
the DOE's shoddy loan monitoring programs.
Bankrupt
SpectraWatt, red-faced Goldman Sachs. A solar cell company based in New York,
SpectraWatt went belly up last August despite a half-million-dollar federal
stimulus boost and lucrative backing from politically connected Goldman Sachs
-- whose ties reach deep into the Obama Treasury Department, Commodity Futures
Trading Commission, White House National Economic Council and 1600 Pennsylvania
Ave. itself. The eco-failure was dumped in a fire sale for less than $5
million.
Teetering
Nevada Geothermal, cheerleading Harry Reid. Despite $150 million in federal DOE
and Treasury Department subsidies -- not to mention personal lobbying by Senate
Majority Leader Harry Reid -- this alternative energy project is on the brink
of failure. A Deloitte and Touche audit grimly concludes that the company
"has incurred net losses over the past several years, has an accumulated
deficit of $44.0 million and an anticipated inability to retire its long-term
liabilities." According to CBS News, the company's latest SEC filings warn
of multiple defaults.
My
scouring of White House visitor logs shows nine visits from another Green
Robber Baron, Illinois-based Exelon's CEO John Rowe, who met with the president
and former chief of staff Rahm Emanuel multiple times. As Forbes magazine
reported: The clean energy company "has very deep ties to the Obama
Administration. Frank M. Clark, who runs ComEd, helped advise Obama before he
ran for president and is one of Obama's largest fundraisers. Obama's chief
political strategist, David Axelrod, worked as a consultant to Exelon. Obama's
chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, helped create Exelon" -- where he raked in
more than $16 million over two years.
Remember:
"Fairness" is in the eye of the wealth redistributors.
Michelle
Malkin is the author of "Culture of Corruption: Obama and his Team of Tax
Cheats, Crooks & Cronies" (Regnery 2010). Her e-mail address is
malkinblog@gmail.com.
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