IBD editorials ^ | June 3, 2012
Industrial Policy: At the NATO Summit, President Obama said his opponent's private equity success vs. the administration's failed industrial policy was what this election was all about. Speaking at the bankrupt Solyndra headquarters, his GOP opponent agreed.
It is said a picture is worth a thousand words. The photo of Mitt Romney holding a surprise press conference in front of the headquarters of the bankrupt solar energy firm Solyndra poster may just be worth a good portion of the 270 electoral votes needed for victory in November.
"Two years ago President Obama was here to tout this building and this business as a symbol of the success of his stimulus," said Romney, stepping off a bus and onto the public sidewalk in front of the Solyndra buildings just outside Silicon Valley. "Well you can see that it's a symbol of something very different today."
Indeed, it is a symbol of the failure of the administration's green energy boondoggle, where over a half billion dollars has been spent to reward donors while subsidizing an uncompetitive company with a doomed business model.
Solyndra, where 1,100 employees lost their "green jobs," is only one of many green failures that included companies like Beacon Power, First Solar and Ener1, battery maker for President Obama's fantasy fleet of electric cars.
During a visit to Solyndra Inc.'s Fremont, Calif., facility in spring 2010, President Obama boasted of what the company was going to do with the $535 million in loan guarantees his stimulus package provided.
"We can see the positive impacts right here at Solyndra," he said. "(T)hrough the Recovery Act, this company received a loan to expand its operations. This new factory is the result of those loans." Loans, that Romney pointed out, the taxpayers were left on the hook for.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.investors.com ...
