A writer to the Independent Coast Observer (our local weekly newspaper) recently demonstrated that many public
employee jobs at an average annual salary of $65,000 could be saved by
diverting campaign finance money to fund their continued employment. This is
truly an apples and oranges concept: public employees are paid from taxes; campaigns
are financed by contributions. How the money would get from the one pot to the
other puzzles me. Short of an outright donation to the government, which I
encourage all Liberals who think they aren’t taxed enough to make, this is not
doable.
However, I surmise the letter writer’s point was that
funding Republican campaigns was a waste of money, and that Democrats spending
twice as much was not, since this was not mentioned. This inspired me to
examine government money wasted supporting clean energy development which could
be better used.
In a January report, CBS News featured 12 clean energy
companies that were having trouble after collectively being approved for more
than $6.5 billion in federal assistance. Five already filed for bankruptcy: the
junk bond-rated Beacon, Evergreen Solar, SpectraWatt, AES’ subsidiary Eastern
Energy, and the infamous Solyndra. Abound Solar Manufacturing, Longmont, Colo. recipient
of a $400 million federal loan guarantee, just laid off 280 workers, 70%
reduction of its workforce.
Using Republican math, $6.5 billion would fund 100,000
public employee jobs at $65,000 each per annum to vote for Democrats. Using
Liberal math, Democrats would take credit for saving 100 million public
employee jobs even if the unemployment rate stayed over eight percent, and
still get all their votes.
Since there are only 310 million Americans, the Democrat
claim would not pass the smell test but that wouldn’t stop them from making it
or their Liberal supporters from believing it. Democrats just get a lot more
from numbers than Republicans can.
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