Waxman (RAT-California) to Issa: Get Solyndra facts straight (Darrell answers back)

The Hill ^ | 9/27/11 | Ben Geman

[Libloather]

Waxman to Issa: Get Solyndra facts straight
By Ben Geman - 09/27/11 07:32 AM ET

Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) is rebutting House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa’s (R-Calif.) claim that Waxman helped the now-bankrupt solar company Solyndra secure its $535 million federal loan guarantee.

Waxman said in a letter to Issa on Monday that he had no role in the financing.

“I am writing to let you know that I had no involvement in the selection of the Solyndra loan. In fact, the first time I met with representatives from Solyndra was in July 2011, when the company’s CEO, Brian Harrison, informed me — erroneously, it turned out — that the company’s prospects were bright,” writes Waxman, the top Democrat on the Energy and Commerce Committee.

Issa made the allegation when announcing Sept. 20 that his committee would broadly investigate federal loan support to private companies. His probe joins the House Energy and Commerce Committee’s ongoing Solyndra investigation.

Waxman once headed the Oversight and Government Reform Committee. “As a former chairman of the Oversight Committee, I know that the public pays attention to statements the chair makes. That gives whoever occupies the chair of the Oversight Committee a special responsibility to be accurate,” Waxman’s letter states.

But an Issa spokeswoman pushed back against Waxman’s letter, arguing that Waxman is tethered to the stimulus law provision under which the California solar company received federal aid.

“As the then-chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, there’s probably no one in Congress more responsible for the flawed provisions in the stimulus that led to Solyndra’s special treatment than Congressman Waxman. This is a clear case of a former chairman unwilling to accept appropriate responsibility for failing to properly vet the stimulus proposal before it was rushed into law,” said spokeswoman Becca Watkins.

The 2009 stimulus package expanded the advanced energy loan guarantee program that was first authorized in a 2005 bill signed into law under then-President George W. Bush.

Issa mentioned Waxman in announcing the Oversight panel’s probe on C-SPAN a week ago.

“There’s been this attitude that somehow government can weigh in with loan guarantees and money and pick winners, specific company winners, and losers. We see that as a backdoor, easy way to end up with corruption in government because the people picking winners and losers, in this case Solyndra, include Henry Waxman, one of my colleagues, then a chairman, it includes the president, it includes people who come to the White House 16 times and are the largest bundlers for the president,” Issa said Sept. 20.

Issa later added:

“In the case of the president’s people, in the case of Henry Waxman, clearly you had people who saw a link between their campaign contributions, their ideological bent and these companies.”

[Libloather]

Waxman is tethered to the stimulus law provision under which the California solar company received federal aid.

I bet he is.

California Democratic Party among Solyndra’s creditors

[nathanbedford]

The 2009 stimulus package expanded the advanced energy loan guarantee program that was first authorized in a 2005 bill signed into law under then-President George W. Bush.

I am aware that 6 years ago it was a different world but it is well to point out that this is another example of the Democrats distorting and capitalizing on an opportunity unnecessarily handed to them by the Bush administration. The obvious example is TARP which makes it difficult to attack Obama for his stimulus bill or the bailout of the auto companies. Unbalanced budgets during the Bush years make it more difficult to criticize Obama's deficits even though they were orders of magnitude worse. Federal prescription drug entitlements make it harder to criticize Obamacare as Romneycare does as well.

"Compassionate" conservatism lays the predicate for unbridled socialism.

Every Republican administration must be mindful that every gesture made toward bipartisanship, every law passed out of compassion, will be distorted by the Democrats and that distortion will be ignored or distorted in turn by the media.

[BobP]

Solyndra - Clean Energy is Dirty

How dare Republicans question the waste of a mere half a billion dollars on some sham company that was a big Zer0 donor. No criminal negligence and malfeasance with taxpayer dollars for political purposes here.

[COBOL2Java]

Why, how DARE Issa try to lay “blame” on Waxman for Solyndra! Doesn’t he know that, for liberals, all that counts is good intentions? < /leftist thougts off >

[COBOL2Java]

"Compassionate" conservatism lays the predicate for unbridled socialism.

Well put.

[Venturer]

Amen Brother: You hit that nail dead on the head.

In another tangent :
How can Waxman be innocent of any knowledge of Solyndra when he was head of the Energy and Commerce Committee?

If he was not aware then he is totally incompetent.

[DH]

“Compassionate” conservatism lays the predicate for unbridled socialism.

---

You are absolutely right. Compassionate (thinking with your heart) conservatism (thinking with your mind) are a plus and a minus mathematical calculation. It’s a “win-win” for both sides of the isle but always seems to tilt in the direction of the liberals who control the “compassionate” side of any argument.

[eyeamok]

Congress has the Absolute Right to Expel a Member for conduct, throw these LYING SCUMBAGS OUT, Hold hearings and Expel them for LYING. I am so sick and tired of LIARS, when will it end.

[JPG]

One big advantage that the GOP has in controlling the House is that it puts Waxman in minority status. In the pecking order of socialist muckety-mucks, Waxman is at or near the top. He is a 100% hyper-partisan rat.

[nathanbedford]

It is not just the "compassionate" legislative programs which serve as timebombs for conservatism, but it includes such things as feting Teddy Kennedy in the White House and thus legitimatizing him or honoring Bill Clinton with a portrait and rehabilitating him after impeachment for committing perjury and trying to fix a court case.

It is this concession that bipartisanship is unequivocally a desirable goal and therefore to advocate one's philosophy is somehow parochial and even unpatriotic which perception causes conservatism huge damage. When the Democrats pursue their parochial goals it is not reported as rank partisanship but when Republicans and conservatives behave in accordance with the very reason for their existence, they are blackguarded.

All of this talk about independents recoiling at partisanship may or may not be true but we certainly ratify this reaction to our own detriment when we act as though bipartisanship in itself is a healthy state of affairs. This is an adversarial democracy designed to operate when two healthy political parties engage in competition for acceptance of their ideas. It is an adversarial party system not a consensus system.

I have often thought that the Bushes thought that party politics was somehow beneath them, even smarmy, and something they must hold their nose and indulge in so they could otherwise behave as statesmen.

We should attack the very assumptions that the media uses to intimidate Republicans and conservatives.

[Tennessean4Bush]

Power corrupts. As it increases so does its corrupting sphere of impact. The party of the little guy is now unrecognizable.

[Tennessean4Bush]

Not only for both sides of the isle, but coincidentally, for both sides of the aisle, too. I think even people on continental land masses as well. Lol!