Today’s Wall Street Journal reports that investment in renewable energies, and the green jobs that go with it, is being stifled by the stimulus.
How? No one knows where, when, or if the stimulus money from Washington will arrive, sowing uncertainty among investors and businesses alike:
New incentive programs haven’t yet been defined, and uncertainty about program rules has deterred investors from backing companies that also may get government money. At the same time, companies are holding off from accepting private capital because of the possibility of getting it more cheaply from the government.
“It artificially slowed the recovery,” Matt Cheney, chief executive of Renewable Ventures, the U.S. subsidiary of Fotowatio SL, a Spanish developer of renewable-energy projects, said of the stimulus plan.
President Obama’s guarantees about the stimulus keeping unemployment below 8% are bogus, and today the GAO reports that states “generally have not directed the money toward long-term expansion.”
No surprises there. However, the uncertainty created by a centrally-planned recovery jeopardizes America’s long-term economic health. The stated purpose of Obama’s stimulus is to create jobs via government largesse. Permitting people the liberty to make their own investment decisions by easing their tax burden would have been far better.
