Why All The Green Pork In A Deal Meant To Avoid The Fiscal Cliff?

Forbes ^ | 01/15/2014 | Robert Bradley Jr.

[SeekAndFind]

When President Obama’s autopen turned the fiscal cliff deal into law, Americans might have thought that the federal government had begun to walk down the road to a balanced budget.

But the 157-page American Taxpayer Relief Act of 2012 is business-as-usual. The backroom deal, chiefly engineered by Vice President Biden, fed the special-interest well while leaving the federal budget in crisis. The final bill includes some $68 billion in favors over the next ten years.

The fiscal irresponsibility continues unabated. A look at the energy provisions alone shows why.

For starters, the cliff deal renewed the twenty-years-and-counting “temporary” tax credit for new wind startups. The Joint Committee on Taxation estimates this extension alone will cost taxpayers $12 billion in the coming decade.

And what, perchance, can we expect in return for all that money?

Not much. The perpetually infant wind industry is in decline. Shockingly, consumers do not want to buy expensive and unreliable energy. Even grassroots environmentalists are saying “not in my backyard” to both the noisy, unsightly turbines — and the power lines needed to transmit wind power from the windy wilds all the way to population centers.

Senators John Thune and Chuck Grassley were the chief advocates of the extension. Just perhaps their high-sounding arguments had something to do with South Dakota and Iowa both being home to huge wind energy facilities.

But wind cronyism is now being questioned all across the political spectrum. The Washington Post editorial page, for example, recently lambasted wind credits for placing “hidden costs on taxpayers” and embodying the liberal caricature of “spending freely on nice-sounding programs.”

[rawcatslyentist]

All the green deals so far have been a thinly veiled two step theft and money laundering service for the Indonesian.

[sickoflibs]

RE :”When President Obama’s autopen turned the fiscal cliff deal into law, Americans might have thought that the federal government had begun to walk down the road to a balanced budget. “

No one thought that.

The whole idea was to extend tax cuts (=deficits) and delay spending cuts (=deficits) . No one thought the idea was deficit reduction.

and since the Rs in the House could not agree to the first (plan B) they got stuck with this Reid McConnell Bill.

Besides, does the congress pass any spending/tax cuts without pork? Looks like removing earmarks didnt stop pork.