Cash for Caulkers: Another Subsidized Clunker
Nicolas Loris /
This week The House of Representatives is set to vote on a, $6.6 billion home energy efficiency bill commonly referred to as “cash for caulkers.” The plan would give rebates to homeowners willing to green their homes by installing new windows and retrofitting homes energy efficient upgrades. The legislation, H.R. 5019, is being sold as a win for the economy, the planet and consumers. Its supporters of say it will create jobs and lower both greenhouse gas emissions and electric bills through less energy usage. But the old “If it’s too good to be true” adage holds up again. Cash for caulkers is nothing more than a $6.6 billion, taxpayer-funded government program that of wealth that will be fraught with fraud and is another step in the direction in the creating a green bubble.
More Picking Winners and Losers
Cash for Caulkers. allows for a maximum of $3,000 for homeowners to weatherize their homes as they see fit. Incentives work and surely enough, if you subsidize anything enough, people will buy it. But who are the taxpayers subsidizing? Those who would have made improvements in their house without the government’s help or those who are on a tight budget in a recessionary environment – and could ostensibly default on paying for the rest of the project. If people are careful however, and make cuts in their budget elsewhere, then there is no increase in economic activity but rather a shift from one sector to another. The Wall Street Journal labels it “a federally sponsored sale at the local Home Depot or Lowe’s through 2011, at least for those products and services that the government has decided are environmentally correct.”