Green jobs

Barack Obama has taken to micro-managing our economy by picking the winners and losers.  Not only has he chosen “green energy” but he has selected which companies within the industry will benefit from Obama’s piggy bank.  And it turns out that if you wanted a piece of the government’s green energy piggy bank, you would have better luck if you had … donated to Barack Obama’s campaign!

A new list of green energy loans doled out by the Obama administration reveals that 80% of the $20.5 billion in energy department loans went to Obama’s top donors.  Don’t you think that this is just a bit strange?  This, my friends, is what you would call crony capitalism – using someone else’s money (the tax payers) to reward personal relationships (in this case, for political gain).

Since Obama has chosen green energy, what does this mean?  Other industries are deemed the “losers.”  For example, oil and gas exploration?  Losers.  This doesn’t fit into Obama’s goal of supporting the industries he wants to see thrive.  Just take a look at the Keystone Pipeline … this is an energy project that could have resulted in 20,000 jobs in America.  But this didn’t fit into Obama’s agenda.  It wouldn’t A) Be a “green” job and B) Help him get re-elected.  Meanwhile, who suffers?  The middle class.  People who want to work and pay taxes are instead not getting jobs and then seeing the job creators’ taxes being used to fund “green” energy projects.

Don’t get me wrong .. green energy is not a bad thing.  But the president should not be trying to force Americans into a market they are not yet ready to invest and explore.  Let the market take us there naturally.  Just take a look at what happened when the government went and spent $500 million for “green” job training.  At the end of the day, the number of trainees who landed green jobs was equivalent to only 10% of the Department of Labor’s own goal.  Even worse, only 2% landed jobs for six months or longer.  Or how about the $5 billion in stimulus funds that went to “weatherize” homes, where more than 50% of them failed inspections because of substandard workmanship.

When Barack Obama nominates a self-described Communist to be a green jobs czar (Van Jones), that should have been our first clue that his intent was not to create jobs but to implement a command economy by rewarding his political backers with your tax dollars