February 10, 2010
China Rakes in Stimulus Jobs
My column today looks at the phantom Porkulus II/Jobs Bill. I say “phantom” because there is no bill text I can actually point you to — it’s the same business-as-usual we’ve been subjected to since Porkulus I. GOP Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell was on the Senate floor yesterday pleading to see the legislation: ““My members need to be able to feel like they understand what they are being called upon to support.” God save us from bipartisanship. (And yes, Obama-defined bipartisanship = surrender.)Reading Michelle this AM I was reminded of a story this week where out of thousands of jobs created by the stimulus for wind power, only a few hundred were actually created in the US. The majority going to China instead of here.Related: Rea Hederman at the Heritage Foundation takes a closer look at the anti-job tax gimmicks on the table.
ATLANTA -- Windmill farms are popping up all over the United States. President Barack Obama wants it to continue.More here:In his State of the Union address last month he said, "the nation that leads the clean energy economy will be the nation that leads the global economy".
The President set aside millions of stimulus dollars for green initiatives as part of last year's American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. Since then, the government has handed out $1.7 billion dollars into the wind power industry. But, the big news is where the money is going. America's new "green rush" has turned into a 21st century "gold rush" for other countries.
"Foreign companies are looking at the U.S. and are seeing a really great opportunity," said Russ Choma of America University. His investigation, along with a U.S. Senate report found more than a billion dollars going to foreign-owned energy companies. It's because they dominate the field of manufacturing the turbines and other equipment for windmill farms.
"The big problem we see with the legislation...is that there's nothing that says what you have to do with the money once you receive it. The hope is that you will re-invest it in the U.S., but there's nothing that obligates you to do so", Choma said.
Federal stimulus money rescued the U.S. wind-power industry from what could have been a disastrous 2009, but it still lost sought-after manufacturing jobs, a trade group reported Tuesday.Nationwide, the wind-power industry employs about 85,000 people — the same number as a year ago after it gained 13,000 manufacturing jobs in 2008, says Denise Bode, CEO of the American Wind Energy Association.
