The American Spectator

Just when the discussion in Washington turns inescapably to reckless spending of the sort that earned Spain the title ‘The Next Greece’, President Obama goes to Pennsylvania today for an ‘energy town hall’ to promote policies he used to regularly admit he borrowed from Spain’s socialists. Yet these are policies Spain, Germany and the rest of his models are actually sprinting away from.

Specifically, the president will strike the ‘green jobs’ pose again at a plant owned by Spanish windmill producer Gamesa, rather incredibly reprising his cheerleading for this subsidy-dependent industry - all of whose manufacturing jobs will flee when the subsidies run out. That is, they are not - wait for it - ‘sustainable’.

Remember, in Spain, it cost the taxpayer $750,000 per ‘green job’, 9 of 10 of which were temporary. Obama’s ‘stimulus’ green jobs, per his own Council on Economic Advisors, came in at $474,000 each. Those jobs would not have existed without the wealth transfer, and disappear when the wealth transfer ends. And, at that rate, they have to end sooner rather than later. You don’t make it up in volume..

So, amid the discussion in Washington among the few serious people left turning to a budget and deficit reduction, this is what Obama pushes. We’re in trouble, folks.

And, no, for those who see the prospect of getting one of them high-paying windmill jobs as a silver lining, no.

From the report, “Yellow Light on Green Jobs: A Report by the Senate Subcommittee on Green Jobs and the New Economy”, Spring 2009:

“Gamesa pays its production workers as low as $13 per hour or up to 28% less than the average national manufacturing wage.” p. 23

Whatever this is, it isn’t about what he says it’s about. Like some guy named Alinsky used to tell his acolytes, when pushing their schemes, the issue isn’t really the issue.