Free Republic

Pennsylvania Congressman, Mike Kelly, wants to end the $7,500 tax credit that affluent purchasers of electric vehicles are currently taking advantage of. The most hyped of these vehicles has been General Motors' Chevy Volt, but other plug-in cars, like Fiskers and Teslas, sell for close to $100,000 and make a strong case for Rep. Kelly's argument. Let's look past the recent Chevy Volt fires. The value of a vehicle will be determined by the consumer. It does not matter if Jay Leno and other rich purchasers say they love their Volts. The real questions are, should taxpayers be paying...

Lost in the hustle and bustle of the holiday season, Congress has quietly ended subsidies on ethanol fuel as well as ending a special import tariff on Brazilian ethanol. The ethanol subsidy paid fuel blenders 45 cents per gallon to make E10, gasoline blended with 10% ethanol. The tariff added 54 cents to the cost of importing a gallon of ethanol from Brazil. The ethanol subsidy currently costs US taxpayers about $6 billion per year. Over the past 30 years, the program has cost $45 billion. By taking no action on the subsidy before adjourning for the end of the...

Federal funds skew business investment during Obama termDisturbing revelations continue to emerge about how more than half a billion dollars of taxpayer dollars were shoveled into the Solyndra solar-panel boondoggle. It is becoming increasingly clear that the only “green” involved in this scandal is money. There is no compelling reason to empower the government to use public funds to engage in risky investments. There also is no reason to believe that government bureaucrats - especially political appointees, not usually known for their business acumen or technical expertise - are smart enough to pick winners in competitive business sectors. Energy Secretary...

Shortly after he gave General Motors a $53 billion bailout in 2009, President Barack Obama said the plug-in Chevrolet Volt would be salvation of the beleaguered automaker. Consumers will buy 120,000 Volts each year from 2012 onwards, the Energy Department predicted then. But through November, only 6,142 Volts have been sold. And that pitiful figure is inflated by purchases for government fleets. Johan de Nysschen, president of Audi of America, isn’t surprised. “No one is going to pay a $15,000 premium for a car that competes with a (Toyota) Corolla,” he told Lawrence Ulrich of MSN Autos in 2009. “So...

NLPC Associate Fellow Paul Chesser was interviewed last night on Cavuto on the Fox Business Network. Paul asserted that electric vehicles like the Chevy Volt have failed in the marketplace, despite massive taxpayer subsidies. VIDEO 3:49 minutes

On Monday evening Texas Governor Rick Perry, a Republican Presidential candidate, spoke with Iowa farmers during a telephone town hall event hosted by the Iowa Soybean Association. In an effort to focus national attention on the critical topic of agricultural policy and trade impacting farmers across America, the ISA board of directors has invited all major Presidential candidates to participate in a telephone town hall meeting. During his opening remarks Perry said the country is in trouble and he is concerned about the future and that his candidacy is about fighting the fight for the next generation. "I'm not interested...

Last week Frito-Lay, the $12 billion snack foods division of PepsiCo, boasted it would add 10 all-electric delivery trucks in Orlando, Fla. , as part of its plan to deploy 176 such vehicles in the U.S. and Canada by the end of year. As is custom with corporate announcements that proclaim their eco-accomplishments, so as to pacify persistent climate alarmists , Frito-Lay said the vehicles would emit “zero” pollutants from tailpipes and release 75 percent fewer greenhouse gases than diesel. The ETs (electric trucks) can allegedly run 100 miles on a single charge, and Frito-Lay says the groundbreaking new...

I completely understand and agree with the argument that Mitt Romney’s support for the individual mandate at the state level will greatly complicate and undermine his criticism of Obamacare. But I don’t quite see how one can hold that position and not believe that these sorts of comments from Newt Gingrich to Glenn Beck today wouldn’t complicate and undermine criticism of runaway spending during the Obama administration: GLENN: Why would we, why would we go into subsidies, though? Isn’t ‑‑ aren’t subsidies really some of the biggest problems that we have with our spending and out‑of‑control picking of winners and...

...UPDATE: Hey, remember when this was the year that the Republican field was going to break away from pandering on ethanol? Remember how this year was going to be the year that fury over runaway spending was going to overtake the usual pandering to primary state constituencies? Yeah, not so much. Recall from January of this year: The former Speaker blew through Des Moines last Tuesday for the Renewable Fuels Association summit, and his keynote speech to the ethanol lobby was as pious a tribute to the fuel made from corn and tax dollars as we’ve ever heard. Mr. Gingrich...

Michigan taxpayers gave the makers of “A Very Harold & Kumar 3D Christmas” $8.3 million for filming in this state. The state reimbursed the filmmakers for $8.3 million of the $21.8 million spent in the state, or 38 percent of their costs. According to Box Office Mojo, the movie has grossed $31.5 million in American theaters as of Nov. 27 and had a production budget of $19 million. The movie, which came out Nov. 4, has made $12 million more than its publicized $19 million production budget. “Any business would gladly take 38 percent cash back on all their expenses....

It’s another day, and another round of layoffs by a recipient of millions of dollars under the Obama Administration’s renewable energy initiatives, administered by the mismanaged Department of Energy. This time the Recovery Act largesse – taken out of the hide of taxpayers – went to A123 Systems, Inc. The Massachusetts-based energy storage company was given $249.1 million to help launch two battery-manufacturing plants in Michigan. A123 also received grants and tax credits from the state that could total more than $135 million. In a separate federal grant as a subcontractor for another grantee, A123 received nearly $30 million...

Many articles written over the past year have questioned if President Obama will be able to reach his goal of having a million electric vehicles on US roads in 2015. A more important fact has been overlooked. That is, even if we get a million EVs on the roads in four years, we will have done practically nothing to reduce oil consumption in America. To be more specific, we will reduce consumption by approximately 0.15%. Is it worth the billions of taxpayer dollars spent producing controversial vehicles like the Chevy Volt in order to lessen foreign oil dependence four...

MADISON — Enjoy that Thanksgiving feast, taxpayers. Chances are, you’re going to pay for part of it twice. Federal taxpayer subsidies underwrite the costs in the production of some of the key commodities found on the traditional Thanksgiving table. The side dishes on the menu — the rolls and stuffing, the scalloped or cream-style corn, and the long-grain rice — all come from the five crops that remain heavily subsidized by U.S. taxpayers. Commodity kings Wheat, corn, soybeans, rice and cotton make up more than 90 percent of agriculture subsidies to farmers or investors, many of whom are drawing big...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- New fires involving the lithium-ion batteries in General Motors Co.'s Chevrolet Volt have prompted an investigation to assess the risk of fire in the electric car after a serious crash, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said Friday. One Volt battery pack that was being closely monitored following a government crash test caught fire Thursday, the safety administration said in a statement. Another recently crash-tested battery emitted smoke and sparks, the statement said. GM, which was informed of the investigation on Friday, said in a statement that the Volt "is safe and does not present undue risk...

End-Game for USAF Competition? By Ed Timperlake November 20, 2011 11/20/2011 The headline in the Wichita Eagle says it all—“Hawker Beechcraft loses out on big Air Force contract” Reporter Dan Voorhis writing for The Wichita Eagle, (November 18 2011) points out that; “Hawker Beechcraft Corp. says the Air Force has informed the company that it lost out on a military contract worth nearly $1billion. “The company had hoped to win the Light Air Support contract with its AT-6, an armed version of its T-6 trainer. But on Friday, the company said it received a letter from the Air Force saying...

Last week NLPC reported about aConsumer Reports reviewer’s unpleasant experience driving the all-electric Nissan Leaf. Despite Liza Barth’s frequent range anxiety and endurance of freezing temperatures so as to avoid using the Leaf’s heater to preserve its power, she declined to give it a “thumbs down.” Instead, she seemed to chalk up the inconveniences (like “numb fingers and toes”) to her own inability to adapt to new technology, rather than calling the electric vehicle what it really is: a failure that is massively subsidized by taxpayers. Last month another Leaf customer wrote about his experience, and as opposed to...

Newt Gingrich spent the last decade being paid by big business to convince conservatives to support big-government policies that would profit his clients. Gingrich's consulting firm racked up $1.6 million in fees from the government-sponsored enterprise Freddie Mac, we learned this week from Bloomberg News. Gingrich's job was to help Freddie Mac win over conservatives to this market-distorting, bubble-fueling, housing-subsidy entity, which is now officially owned by the federal government. We also know that Growth Energy, an ethanol lobby, paid $312,500 to the Gingrich Group in 2009, according to the group's tax filing. Growth Energy lobbies to preserve many ethanol...

A woman who amassed roughly $3 million in taxpayer subsidies from her Milwaukee child care centers was indicted Tuesday by a federal grand jury in Milwaukee on 16 counts of wire fraud and theft, charged with stealing more than $275,000. Latasha Jackson, who also is listed as Latasha Wilder, bought a Jaguar convertible and built a mansion in Menomonee Falls with an indoor swimming pool and indoor basketball court - while regulators ignored red flags for 10 years that she could be cheating the system, the Journal Sentinel's "Cashing in on Kids" investigation found. The indictment of Jackson is the...

Winding down Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac was never going to be easy, given the mortgage giants' market dominance and the housing lobby of Realtors, home builders, banks and others arrayed against reform. But if even a Republican House of Representatives can't take a baby step toward a private market after some $142 billion in taxpayers losses, who will? It's a question that House Speaker John Boehner might consider as he reads a letter that Florida Republican Bill Posey and New York Democrat Gary Ackerman are circulating to fellow Members for signatures. The letter supports an amendment to an appropriations...

The sun shines on the beachfront mansions of Malibu and La Jolla, just as it does on Compton and Barrio Logan in San Diego. ... But based on how California policymakers dole out valuable subsidies for solar panels placed on the residential roofs, the poorest parts of our sunny state might as well be on the dark side of the moon. California is in the midst of by far the nation's most ambitious program to convert to solar energy, one that began in 2006 when then Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger declared that during the next decade, the state would place solar...