From the debate last night, Joe Biden defended the administration’s record on their DOE loan program: (emphasis mine)
(CROSSTALK) BIDEN: I love that. I love that. This was such a bad program and he writes me a letter saying — writes the Department of Energy a letter saying, “The reason we need this stimulus, it will create growth and jobs.” His words. And now he’s sitting here looking at me.
And by the way, that program, again, investigated. What the Congress said was it was a model. Less than four-tenths of 1 percent waste or fraud in the program.
And all this talk about cronyism. They investigated and investigated, did not find one single piece of evidence. I wish he would just tell — be a little more candid.
RYAN: Was it a good idea to spend taxpayer dollars on electric cars in Finland, or on windmills in China?
BIDEN: Look…
RYAN: Was it a good idea to borrow all this money from countries like China and spend it on all these various different interest groups?
BIDEN: Let me tell you what was a good idea. It was a good idea, Moody’s and others said that this was exactly what we needed to stop this from going off the cliff. It set the conditions to be able to grow again. We have, in fact, 4 percent of those green jobs didn’t go under — went under, didn’t work. It’s a better batting average than investment bankers have. They have about a 40 percent…
RYAN: Where are the 5 million green jobs that were being…
RADDATZ: I want to move on here to Medicare and entitlements. I think we’ve gone over this quite enough.
To address the first excerpt I highlighted, The Heritage Foundation sent this out after the debate. It’s Obama’s own Treasury Department that is investigating:
Taxpayer-Backed Green Energy Firms Subpoenaed by Federal Watchdog
The Treasury Department’s top watchdog has opened an investigation into a popular grant program that helped finance a host of green energy projects, according to a recent SEC filing by one of the companies under investigation.
SolarCity Corp. revealed in its initial public offer (IPO) filing that it has been subpoenaed by Treasury’s inspector general for “documents dated, created, revised or referred to since January 1, 2007 that relate to our applications for U.S. Treasury grants or communications with certain other solar development companies or certain firms that appraise solar energy property for U.S. Treasury grant application purposes.”
And as for the crony capitalism charge, the IRS is opposing Solyndra’s bankruptcy on the grounds that the investors have set up the bankruptcy as one big tax shelter for themselves. Argonaut is tied to Obama fundraiser George Kaiser:
The IRS claims that as far back as December 2010, Argonaut was formulating a way to preserve the carryforwards if Solyndra had to seek bankruptcy protection, saying that since then, “Argonaut and Madrone went to extraordinary lengths to maximize their value, and to improve the chances that they would someday realize it.”
The Energy Department also objected, saying the plan doesn’t protect its interest in the company’s collateral it had before Solyndra sought court protection. Solyndra has spent almost all the money it generated from asset sales so far, the Energy Department said in its objection.
Under the solar-panel maker’s restructuring plan, the government might get little to nothing for its $528 million claim from the loan guarantee. The government is projected to recoup, at most, 19 percent on $142.8 million of the loan, and likely nothing on the remaining $385 million, according to the disclosure statement.
As for the second excerpt,
“We have, in fact, 4 percent of those green jobs didn’t go under — went under, didn’t work. It’s a better batting average than investment bankers have. They have about a 40 percent…”
Can anyone translate this for me? He makes no sense. He’s obviously misspeaking, but I would really like for his office to clarify what he was really trying to say.