Uhm, yeah, 'jobs will be lost' if Congress doesn't act and put a definitive stop to President Obama's farcical economic equivalent of playing God. Honestly now -- is he joking?
President Obama stopped in Newton, Iowa to campaign for a renewable energy tax credit set to expire at the end of the year. The tax credits are part of the president's "To-Do" list for Congress.
Speaking at TPI Composites, which manufactures wind blades for wind turbines and employs 700 people, the president told the crowd that extending the tax credit is "a big deal."
"This industry -- thanks in large part to some very important tax credits -- has now taken off," the president told the crowd largely made up of TPI workers. ...
However, he said "that progress is in jeopardy. If Congress doesn't act, those tax credits I mentioned - the ones that helped to build up the wind industry and bring it here to Newton - will expire. If Congress doesn't act, companies like this one will take a hit. Jobs will be lost."
Let's just rid ourselves of the romantical notion here that the President gives a hoot about these Iowans' jobs at the ol' wind-turbine factory (wind turbines, by the way, are very environmentally costly to manufacture. Just sayin'.). The renewable energy tax credit to which he is referring is what all such subsidies are about: rent-seeking special interests hankering to get their share of corporate welfare. That is all.
And if, as the President claims, the wind industry has really "taken off," why for pity's sake does it need more subsidies? Because it hasn't taken off, and the industry needs these subsidies to stay healthy. Ergo, The American Taxpayer is paying for unproductive jobs in a politically-favored industry, at the opportunity cost of actual economic growth and the creation of real, productive jobs.