Tuesday, February 22, 2011

Solar panel firm squanders $535 million in stimulus funds

Solyndra, Inc., a Fremont, Califorina solar panel firm, squandered over $500 million in stimulus funds, the Daily Caller tells us on this cloudy and snowy day in Morton Grove, Illinois.

According to Biden's speech, the $535 million loan guarantee was a smaller part of the $30 billion of stimulus money the administration planned to spend as part of its Green Jobs Initiative.

Obama made similar claims in a May 26, 2010 speech at the plant, but the 1,000 jobs he and Biden touted in their respective speeches failed to materialize.

Instead, Solyndra announced on Nov. 3 it planned to postpone expanding the plant, which cost the taxpayers $390.5 million, or 73 percent of the total loan guarantee, according to the Wall Street Journal.

It also announced that it no longer planned to hire the 1,000 workers that Obama and Biden had touted in their speeches and that it planned to close one of its older factories and planned to lay-off 135 temporary or contract workers and 40 full-time employees.
I'm certain there will be more stories like this one. In July of 2009, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said the stimulus was a failure. How right he was.

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