“The thing I’m proudest of that we were able to get done in the first term was the Recovery Act. It had $90 billion in clean-energy programs.” -Vice President Joe Biden, May 9, 2013.
August 13th, 2022
By Larry Behrens @ CFACT 115 Comments
The start of a new week brought a renewed sense of momentum for President Joe Biden’s administration and his allies in Congress. At long last, the months-long gridlock, caused by their own party, finally broke and another gusher of tax dollars appears ready to flood our country. Economic realities and those pesky inflation reports be damned.
Proponents have dubbed the bill the “Inflation Reduction Act” because they know it sounds better than the truth: “Biden’s Green New Tax.” History will be the judge about the wisdom of pouring trillions of dollars on an economy struggling with excessive spending. No matter how you slice it, with $369 billion dollars devoted to climate and energy programs, it’s clear there’s a lot on the line for the American taxpayer. If we want to know how the Biden Administration will dole out our dollars, we need look no further than the last time Biden got billions to go green.
As part of the so-called “Recovery Act” passed during the first term of President Obama, there was $90 billion set aside for the very same climate and energy reasoning. President Obama turned to his trusty Vice President to help administer those funds. The results were disastrous.
First, the well-known failure of Solyndra was pinned on Obama, but it was Biden who led the charge in losing $535 million in the fiasco. Solyndra became the poster child of green failure, but it was far from alone.
Then there was $20.5 billion in federal loans distributed from that 2009 stimulus. One examination found that a whopping 80 percent of that money when to “10 members of former President Barack Obama’s finance committee, and more than 12 of his bundlers.”
Note: This number is shockingly close to the current $20 billion Joe Biden wants to send to “green banks” so it can, once again, be distributed to people and organizations that may have ties to supporting Biden’s campaigns.
Two years before Joe Biden called his work on the recovery funds the “proudest” part of his first term as vice president, the Government Accountability Office raised concerns about how those funds we handled. The federal loan program “lacked appropriate tools for assessing progress,” showed favoritism to some applicants and found “reporting and quality issues” when it came to figuring out just how many “green” jobs were created. Keep in mind, this was Joe Biden’s “proudest” accomplishment.
Fast forward to 2022 and President Biden is again proud to have four times more money than he had in 2009. Included in his Green New Tax is the extension of a massive giveaway to those who buy electric vehicles. Studies have shown that those looking to buy an EV make at least $150,000 in annual income, but apparently Joe Biden feels they need a tax break.
Past tends to be prologue for a reason. What we are witnessing with Biden’s Green New Tax is a repeat of 2009. A bill packed with billions of pork that will mostly benefit the rich and those who support President Biden’s failed energy agenda. Joe Biden may be proud of what he did in 2009, but history shows us his pride comes with a huge tag.
Larry Behrens is the Communications Director for Power The Future, a non-profit that advocates for America’s energy workers. You can find him on Twitter @larrybehrens or you can email him: larry@powerthefuture.com
This article originally appeared at Real Clear Energy
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