Friday, September 23, 2011
- PA GOP’s Fall Dinner and Meeting Videos Now Online!
- Solyndra Went on a Spending Spree After Getting Loan – Carol D. Leonning and Joe Stephens, The Washington Post
- Return of the real Obama – Charles Krauthammer, Washington Post
- Editorial: We’re Sinking Under Obama’s Policies – Investors Business Daily
Tweetable:
- RT @PARepublicans Check out footage from our Fall Dinner with @RNC Chairman @ReincePriebus #pagop http://youtu.be/gh8HyF9u_PU
- RT @RNCResearch: CHECK out this #Solyndra email dated 7/13/11 claiming it was financially sound bit.ly/pNWfMd
The Rundown
- PA GOP’s Fall Dinner and Meeting Videos Now Online!
- Solyndra Went on a Spending Spree After Getting Loan – Carol D. Leonning and Joe Stephens, The Washington Post
Former employees of Solyndra, the shuttered solar company that exhausted half a billion dollars of taxpayer money, said they saw questionable spending by management almost as soon as a federal agency approved a $535 million government-backed loan for the start-up.
A new factory built with public money boasted a gleaming conference room with glass walls that, with the flip of a switch, turned a smoky gray to conceal the room’s occupants. Hastily purchased state-of-the-art equipment ended up being sold for pennies on the dollar, still in its plastic wrap, employees said.
As the $344 million factory went up just down the road from the company’s leased plant in Fremont, Calif., workers watched as pallets of unsold solar panels stacked up in storage. Many wondered: Was the factory needed?
“After we got the loan guarantee, they were just spending money left and right,” said former Solyndra engineer Lindsey Eastburn. “Because we were doing well, nobody cared. Because of that infusion of money, it made people sloppy.”
- • Return of the real Obama – Charles Krauthammer, Washington Post
Now that he’s president, Obama has actually gone and done it. He’s just proposed a $1.5 trillion tsunami of tax hikes featuring a “Buffett rule” that, although as yet deliberately still fuzzy, clearly includes raising capital gains taxes.
He also insists again upon raising marginal rates on “millionaire” couples making $250,000 or more. But roughly half the income of small businesses (i.e., those filing individual returns) would be hit by this tax increase. Therefore, if we are to believe Obama’s own logic that his proposed business tax credits would increase hiring, then surely this tax hike will reduce small-business hiring.
But what are jobs when fairness is at stake? Fairness trumps growth. Fairness trumps revenue. Fairness trumps economic logic.
- • Editorial: We’re Sinking Under Obama’s Policies – Investors Business Daily
The head-scratching continues as stocks take another leg down. Why, they ask, must the market be so negative? With an economy buckling under leftist incompetence, what, we ask, is there to be positive about?
Funny, because it’s been going on for almost three years now, but hardly a day goes by without some bit of bad news the media calls “unexpected.” But investors have noticed.
After selling off 2.9% on Wednesday, the S&P 500 dived another 3.2% Thursday. The Dow industrial average is testing a 52-week low.
Wednesday’s drop came after the Fed unveiled its new plan for reviving the economy and as President Obama hit the road to sell his new but unimproved $447 billion stimulus.
Thursday’s “unexpected” news was that the four-week moving average for jobless claims — a labor-market bellwether — rose to 421,000. Any number north of 400,000 is considered recession territory.
But should anyone really be surprised?
After all, we were promised in 2009 that $840 billion in stimulus would guarantee unemployment would not top 8%. Today, it’s 9.1%, and has stayed above 9% for 26 of the last 31 months.
Since this president took office, U.S. businesses have shed 3.3 million jobs. We are still 6.9 million below our peak employment reached in January 2008. Ordinarily, more than two years after a recession has ended, well over a million jobs have been added to payrolls.
