Panel: Green jobs company endorsed by Obama and Biden squandered $535 million in stimulus money
Solyndra, Inc. was supposed to have showcased the effectiveness of the Obama administration’s stimulus and green jobs initiatives, but instead it has become the center of congressional attention for waste, fraud and abuse of such programs.
According to a Feb. 17 letter signed by Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Fred Upton, Michigan Republican, and Oversight Subcommittee Chairman Cliff Stearns, Florida Republican, to Energy Secretary Steven Chu, the Fremont, Calif.-based solar panel manufacturer squandered $535 million of stimulus money.
The company became the first recipient of an Energy Department loan guarantee under the stimulus in March 2009, which was intended to “finance construction of the first phase of the company’s new manufacturing facility” for photovoltaic solar panels.
The Energy Department estimated in a March 20, 2009 press release that the loan guarantee would create 3,000 construction jobs and a further 1,000 jobs after the plant opened.
And President Barack Obama and Vice President Joseph Biden each personally showcased Solyndra as an example of how stimulus dollars were at work creating jobs, during appearances at the company over the course of the following year.
Biden personally announced the closure of Solyndra’s $535 million loan guarantee in a Sept. 9, 2009 speech, delivered via closed-circuit television, on the occasion of the groundbreaking of the plant.
The vice president justified the federal government’s investment in Solyndra in front of employees and other dignitaries, including Secretary Chu and former Calif. Gov. Arnold Schwartzenegger, saying the jobs the company intended to create would “serve as a foundation for a stronger American economy.”
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A June 2010 Wall Street Journal report indicating that Solyndra’s majority owner, Oklahoma billionaire George Kaiser, was a major fundraiser for the 2008 Obama-Biden campaign has stimulus opponents such as Citizens Against Government Waste crying foul.
“We have said this is pork-barrel spending since the beginning,” Leslie Page, spokeswoman for Citizens Against Government Waste, told The Daily Caller. “And the one thing about pork is its corruptive influences.”
Kaiser flatly denied he had anything to do with the loan guarantee when he was asked by the Journal, but Page nonetheless sees cronyism in the loan guarantee because personal involvement of the president and vice president in the project.
“This seems like a quid pro quo, and it raises a lot of questions,” Page said.
Other stimulus critics say Solyndra shows just how flawed the program has been from the beginning and how it has failed to create jobs and needs further oversight.
“It would have been a lot more effective to put money into the hands of the private sector,” said Alex Cortes, chairman of the Restore the Dream Foundation and DefundIt.org. “This is just another example of the failure of the stimulus.”
Solyndra is just the tip of the iceberg, according to Cortes, who plans to raise awareness of other stimulus pork projects such as an approximately $800,000 television ad campaign in New York aimed at promoting healthy eating habits.
“While that’s all well and good … it doesn’t do anything to create jobs,” Cortes said.
And Mattie Corrao, government affairs manager with Americans for Tax Reform, said the Solyndra loan shows how hollow Obama’s promise to keep close track over how stimulus money has been spent has been.
“[The administration] is trying to pretend we’re creating jobs and hoping the taxpayers are dumb enough and blind enough to believe the lie,” Corrao said. “But after two years of unemployment about 9 percent, people aren’t going to believe it anymore.”
Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2011/02/22/panel-green-jobs-company-endorsed-by-obama-and-biden-squandered-535-million-in-stimulus-money/#ixzz1EhziIwgk
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