Government subsidies keep being thrown away on green investments
Delaware taxpayers appear to be getting soaked twice under a deal in which the Democratic governor loaned $21.5 million to a hybrid electric carmaker to set up shop in the state. The company has yet to produce a car in Delaware, and taxpayers are footing the electric bill for the idle plant.
The deal was enthusiastically announced in 2009 by Gov. Jack Markell and Vice President Biden -- formerly Delaware's senior senator -- as a way to bring as many as 2,500 green jobs to the state. But California-based Fisker Automotive Inc. has since suffered a series of setbacks that have compounded its shaky financial situation.
"It has not worked out the way he had envisioned," Markell spokeswoman Cathy Rossi acknowledged Monday in a statement to FoxNews.com. "We didn't know and couldn't have known about the underlying technical and financial problems."
Delaware reportedly has paid at least $400,000 in utility bills since about April, when Fisker halted operations and laid off dozens of workers at the 142-acre, Wilmington-area facility. Markell staffers told The News Journal the payments are part of the grant deal and necessary to at least keep Fisker's small-scale operation on life support. . . . .
However, in February the U.S. Energy Department stopped disbursements on Fisker's $529 million loan because the company purportedly failed to meet production and sales goals on its electric plug-in sedan, the Karma. . . .
Labels: Environment, governmentwaste, stimulus
1 Comments:
Markie Marxist sez: "That's good news! Green investments are so inefficient that they're a great way to throw capitalist America's tax dollars down a rat hole! That's why we need to raise taxes! Ha! Ha! The 100% taxation that is communism is within our grasp! We just need a really bad recession so we can start nationalizing stuff. Goverment Motors will be even more fun the second time around! Of course, with the American capitalist economy as weak as it is with its stifled recovery, after another recession the US federal government could end up owning everything, and never have to give any of it back! I call it "sustainable totalitarianism". Ha! Ha!"
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