Spain Green Jobs Failure

Commissioner Putnam claims renewable energy subsidies create jobs…I beg to differ.

The Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services released a report today claiming that the subsidies in H.B. 7117 will generate new tax revenue, put millions back in the pockets of Floridians and support 3,850 jobs over the next five years. However, reality tells a different story than the colorful image painted by this report.

Spain, which has been used as an example of renewable subsidy success by President Obama and is lauded as a renewable energy pioneer, has recently halted all renewable energy production. A 2009 study showed that Spain’s renewable energy subsidies in fact created job losses, not increases, and that for every new “green” job created by government subsidies, 2.2 jobs in other sectors were lost – this at a cost equal to approximately $746,880 per job! Based on Spain’s outcome, if the US was successful at meeting President Obama’s goal of creating 3-5 million “green” jobs, we could expect to lose 6.5-11 million jobs in return. That’s an interesting return on investment don’t you think?

In addition, a 2011 American Enterprise Institute report showed that Spain’s renewable subsidies resulted in corruption including solar energy being magically produced at night and energy sold as solar power that was actually created by diesel generators. A government inspection revealed that out of 30 solar plants only 13 were actually putting electricity onto the grid.

A German Think Tank’s analysis of Germany’s renewable energy subsidies found that each solar power job cost the taxpayers $240,000 and that the country’s renewable subsidies overall resulted in higher energy prices, lost jobs and reduced consumer purchasing power.

According to the Florida Energy Office's 2011 report, Florida has spent more than $40 million subsidizing biofuels since 2006 but we have no operational biofuel plants and are importing our ethanol from the mid-west. The US Federal government subsidized renewable energy to the tune of $14.7 billion just in 2010. However, renewable power accounts for two-percent of Florida’s electric generation and is unlikely to be competitive with traditional energy resources like natural gas or coal within generations. In 2009, Florida handed out millions in renewable technology grants, including $2.5 million to an Ohio company that has never established a Florida presence and laid off half its Ohio workforce in January, and another $2.5 million to a wind-turbine company that filed for bankruptcy last month.

All this aside the Florida legislature and Commissioner Putnam want you to believe that adding more subsidies for renewable energy will encourage renewable energy growth and bring jobs to Florida. Sorry, I’m not buying it.

Abigail MacIver is Americans for Prosperity's Director of Policy for Florida.

Befuddled Florida Democrats

Dear Editor of The Sun Sentinel:

The whining has already begun and to listen to Prof. Robert Watson, (Op-Ed, Sun. Feb. 12 in the S/S), you'd think the Republicans did something dastardly by shuffling their Congressional candidates for this coming election in November. What Watson, and his fellow Democrats, realize is that this shift will give the Republicans an extra Congressional seat by inserting Adam Hasner as a candidate in the restructured 22nd C.D. Most of the new 22nd C.D. was once the area that was Hasner's district when he represented it in the state legislature, and where he was very popular.

Given the chance, wouldn't the Democrats have done the same thing if it benefited them? The odds now favor that Republicans, Tom Rooney, Allen West, and Adam Hausner, will win in their C.D. races, and the Republicans will increase their Florida representation in Congress.

So Professor Watson, as a spokesman for the befuddled Democrats, will huff and puff and try to blow the Republicans "House" districts down, because they are going to lose a Congressional seat. Amen!

Sincerely,

Chuck On The Right Side

Failed System of Socialism

Dear Friends:

The disease that afflicts these states is a malady called CRI ( Cranial Rectal Inversion). Unfortunately, it has affected the Obama Administration as well. Under what public policy textbook did the officials of these states read to figure out how to screw up the economies of their respective states? When politicians attempt to punish the successful, the producers in our society, by over taxing them to garner revenue for their redistribution, pie-in-the-sky programs, it will cause what is happening now, big deficits and potential bankruptcies.

People of means will not take this "diss" lying down, they will vote with their feet and move to greener pastures, they already have. You don't tax yourself into prosperity, you lower the marginal tax rates to a point where it is beneficial for the entrepreneur (a/k/a job producer) to take a risk and expand or start a new business, hopefully to make a profit ( a dirty word to liberals) so they can expand their business and hire more workers.

That's the positive domino effect of capitalism over the failed system of socialism. Give people an incentive to earn a profit and you'll see the economy take off just like it did under Reagan in the 1980's. Tell that to Obama, a big government pseudo socialist, whose only business experience was as a "community organizer" putting pressure on banks to issue sub prime loans.

Chuck On The Right Side