The Solyndra loan debacle has already cost American taxpayers more than half-a-billion dollars, but it is about to cost them millions more. Each of the company’s 1,100 former employees will receive a package of federally funded benefits worth approximately $13,000 in Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA), increasing the Solyndra bill by $14.3 million.
TAA assists workers who have lost their jobs because of trade imbalances due to increased foreign imports or outsourcing.
The Labor Department announced the award on November 18, the day after Energy Secretary Steven Chu testified before Congress that the loan guarantee was apolitical and made entirely on the merits. Chu specifically declined to apologize for the growing scandal.
The newest payout some Republicans outraged. Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-UT, said, “The failure was blamed on China, but if you cannot even out-compete U.S. companies, it wasn’t foreign competition that ruined your business; it was simply a failed business model.” Hatch’s spokeswoman Julia Lawless (whose surname best describes the Obama administration) added, “This is an embarrassment and shows that TAA is a program of questionable merit.”
Understandable as their pique is, GOP outrage should not be directed toward the little people receiving a pittance of $13,000 apiece (alongside victims of other trade agreements they largely approved). The outrage is the crony loans this administration steered toward its politically connected friends at the top, which total more than 37 times that amount. Solyndra board member Steve Mitchell wrote an e-mail alluding to an “unnatural relationship” in the White House that had dissolved since the initial grant was made. Primary Solyndra investor and Obama campaign bundler George Kaiser met multiple times with Valerie Jarrett, Obama’s most intimate adviser. As the company appeared ready to fail, the administration apparently violated the Energy Policy Act of 2005, which clearly states that all government loan guarantees “shall be subject to the condition that the obligation is not subordinate to other financing.” If found guilty, that would make the Solyndra loan an impeachable offense. Although House Republicans are investigating the approval process and have subpoenaed all White House documents related to it, Obama simply chose to ignore the subpoena.
None of these expenses — the $535 million loan guarantee, the $75 million the company’s investors will recoup before taxpayers receive a dime, the $1 million Obama paid to Lazard Ltd. in an eleventh hour attempt to save the company, nor the $14.3 million to laid off Americans who were just doing their jobs — would exist if Obama were not simultaneously committed to political cronyism and misguided, job-killing environmentalist policies. But even that is not the greatest outrage.
The greatest outrage is the fact that no one in the administration has been held accountable for the illegal shennanigans that assured this fleecing of the American taxpayer ever took place.
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It just keeps getting dirtier and dirtier. Obama is a crook!
Where is the outrage? For all the show, why is it not a charge has been filed? Watching congress is like watching a play about real events instead of the real thing.
It's too late to offer adult supervision to the WH gamers.
They must be disposed of, and quickly.
This clearly shows that there are NO, NOT ONE, true American anywhere in the entire US Senate or Congress. If there where, you would hear them putting a stop to the Obama regime.
Yep, the Republicans are as bad as the Democrats. Time for true patriotic Americans to take back our Republic by force of arms, there is no other option remaining at this point in time.
An armed insurrection? Load up the rig with yer guns and lead, Kalev. I'm sure your fellow "patriotic" revolutionaries will catch up with you.
AMEN AND FIND ROPES AND TREES FOR ALL TRAITORS.
Hey, Kalev, we found someone to ride shotgun with you. Of course since both of you hide behind pseudonyms, it may be tough for you and the irony-challenged, caps-loving apostolique to hook up.
It's time to clean the white house, if you are a big contributor to Obama, you can get away with all the dirty deals that you can pull off and scate free. this needs to STOP.
So tune in to Obama, where the hits just keep on coming!
It's not a question of directing anger at the little people. THOSE ARE OUR TAXES. Whatever anyone gets out of that company should be AFTER taxpayers are reimbursed as best the company is able, and THEN severance paid out (of the residue, not by taxpayers). The idea that individual investors are protected before taxpayers is in my understanding illegal. Once again the Obama administration ignores the law, to pay off Obama contributors. Cronies. There ought to be a law. Oh wait, there is. Why is the law being ignored.
When will the sun come out, so the democrats will be able to see what is going on and realize how badley they have been lied to.
This is a prime example of why the ritch should not be required to pay more taxes. Why should they give the government money to flush down the commode? The welthy are welthy because they know how to handle there money and the invest in businesses and create jobs beside they invest in there communitys and communities that need help. The democrats like to spend, spend, spend, We hear about the cuts for SS and Veterans. What about the Government employees such as Congress the Senate and the President??
I never hear about cuts there. Before they cut SS and The Veterans who has paid there debt to this country.
All I see Obama do is run around the world on our Tax dollars. When are we going to regain our common sense.
TRUST GOD FOR EVERYTHING.
TRUST GOVERNMENT FOR NOTHING.
Marian-The democrats will never be able to "see" what's going on – -they're the biggest "fabricators"!!
I can't understand how people can stand and clap at Obama's SMART ALECK, obnoxiously conceited and self-assertive personality with pretensions to smartness and cleverness! To those people who are eating up his words such as…"we are going to give the Republicans one more chance to vote"…you are going to be eating those words soon. You are already suffering the same as the rest of the people! You are paying higher prices because of inflation on the following: gasoline at the pumps has risen 100%…cotton prices are up 140%…food prices are up 49%… energy has risen 81%! Obama has cut off thousands of jobs with his mortorium on the deep water drilling for oil in the gulf and then he gave Brazil $M's to drill and told them when they were ready to sell their oil, the United States would be their first customer.
Why don't you people who thinks I am lying…research and find out the truth instead of letting Obama stand before you and keep you giggling while he is letting the American people go straight to hell! I challenge you to think for yourself….Obama will not be there for you when all of you are crying help!!!
This will be on the condition, that they vote Demarat, and keep there mouth shut about the waste of money spent for vavish work place benies built into the Phony Work Place. And that the Product they were putting out was of poor quality. Otherwise one of the panels would have provided electricity for a whole state, to make a profit, it was just a scam from the Top Socialist down to the Company swindlers. Have anyone been prosecuted. NO
will a candidate please challenge bo's elgibility to run in 2012…there should be a law that bonuses,stock options, golden parashutes,etc. not be given unless accountants can prove profit…& then profits split equally between employees & stockholders..oh well, usa is not dreamland..
See…we never should've let him out of his cage……
They just won't quit!!! Still out pimping for votes!!! This is incredible that those members of the DC cesspool keep giving away our money like it was theirs. Many Independents are sick and tired of being used by this incompetent, criminal administration, and we will be showing up in great numbers in NOV 2012, IF there is anything left of our country by then!!!!!! AND we won't be voting for the current batch of crooks in DC, you can bet on it!!!!!!!
Being a person on Social security Disability , 3.8% raise this year after 2 years of NO RAISE, $13,000 sounds pretty good to me!!!!!!!!!
How generous of Obama to stick it to us again! Why are the taxpayers forced to pay for the Solyndra scam,allowing Obama's investor friend and campaign funder Kaiser, to recoup his losses, passing the burden of the Huge loss on to Joe the taxpayer. This is unprecedented, it took a special agreement, but Mr.O. did the same thing to the GM stockholders.paying them pennies on the dollar, while giving the Union control. The announcement of, 14 plus million of taxpayer funds awarded to 1100 Solyndra employees, is another example of where Obama's loyalties lie—– with his backers and the unions! Why Isn't this 14plus million paid by Kaiser , the man who caused the fiasco, and walked away with his investment in tact?? I wonder if Mr Obama is that caring and compassionate, for all the other businesses who were forced to let their employees go., due to the poor economy. Did they , and their people get the same special treatment, or is that plum only reserved for certain friends?? I feel very sorry for the Solyndra employees, and have no animosity toward them, and hope they get back to work soon,. What seems to be very wrong , is why Mr. Kaiser is not the one responsible for the employee payments, while Obama places another burden on the US taxpayer.shoulders. 2012 ,can't come quickly enough for the change we sorely need.
How in hell can they get away with that. It smells in denmark.