ANTI-COMPETITIVE HANDOUT PUSHED BY LOBBYIST “BLOWHARDS”
By RICK MANNING || Congress returns for a lame duck session that is beginning to look like a regular cornucopia of goodies for all those patient souls on Washington, D.C.’s K Street who, if they deliver, can expect nice bonuses to pad their mid-six figure paychecks.
With a bevy of tax credits scheduled to expire on December 31, there will be a scramble to approve a whole package of so-called tax extenders. This tax package would in some cases push the life of these credits out for a few years, and in others, make them permanent. After all, it is humiliating for those struggling Silicon Valley venture capitalists to have to grovel before Congress every couple of years to get their research and development tax credits when they could be doing something so much more important like pushing for our nation’s immigration laws to get turned upside down to allow them to hire cheap labor.
But one tax extender is coming under increasing scrutiny even though its supporters are some of the biggest blowhards in a town where this distinction is meaningful — the Wind Production Tax Credit.
That’s right, our government gives the hardscrabble wind energy industry tax credits so that they can sell the energy they produce to electric utilities for less than the cost of generating other non-subsidized electricity generating sources.
If downtrodden companies like Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway did not receive a tax credit for producing wind what would they do?
Here’s what, Warren — not Jimmy although to wrap your head around this you may need to be in Margaritaville — had to say, “we get a tax credit if we build a lot of wind farms. That’s the only reason to build them.”
Of course, the Wind Production Tax Credit is really small potatoes, only costing the U.S. Treasury $13 billion. And with a regular two or three year renewal timeframe, it is constantly generating revenues for those ravenous lobbying firms and their latest ingénue who worked as a driver for a key Member of Congress in his/her first campaign.
(To continue reading this column, click the link below …)
Rick Manning is the vice president of public policy and communications for Americans for Limited Government. Follow him on Twitter @RManning957.
(Pic: Via)
***
10 comments
Wind farms really suck.
For the birds.
Oh, it’s a mighty wind a-blowin’
And it’s blowin’ you and me!
Start making $900 every day for working online for a few hours each day from your home… Get payed weekly on a regular basis… You’ll need a computer, little free time and internet connection and you are ready to go…
——> http://WWW.247-JOB.COM
Eat me, spammy bitch!
“Anti-Competitive Handouts”
Rick “Doesn’t Know Dick” Manning isn’t talking about Big Oil subsidies, mind you.
Get rid of all energy subsidies and see what happens.
BTW Smirks, what about all those government regulations that cost you and I, the consumer?
Waiting for Philip Brandon’s incoherent rant.
Good tidings of great cheer……. :)
Same to you. I expected twenty sentences. All ending in question marks… ;-)
Isn’t it interesting how all the “clean energy” “alternatives” have to have govt. subsidies to keep going ? While the environmental wackos are busy shutting down the proven cheapest electric generation method on the planet. COAL. The coal industry doesn’t get any hand outs but is stymied at every turn , still it comes out on top every time as to cost per kilowatt hour production. Just like capitalism has worked everywhere it has been tried and socialism, communism, progressivism , has failed everywhere it has been tried. Why can’t those in power see this ? Oh, that’s right. Follow the money. Works every time.