Watching ABC World News tonight with Diane Sawyer, I started to get a troubling sense of Deja Vu. The subject was the recent Solyndra bankruptcy - after the government loaned the solar power company over $500 million. Last week it was raided by the FBI. (NBC coverage here); now the story that seems to be emerging raises concerns about whether or not the deal got pushed through on the connections with a big fund raiser for Obama, not on its merits. CBS picked up on the story yesterday:
(AP) WASHINGTON — Even as the executives of a solar energy company assured members of Congress that their finances were improving, a different story was being prepared behind the scenes, according to a congressional memo issued Monday.
The solar panel manufacturer, California-based Solyndra Inc., received a $528 million federal loan. Last week it filed for bankruptcy. The FBI subsequently raided the company's headquarters and interviewed company executives at their homes.
As I type this, it's at the top of the page over at FOX News.
House Republicans are eager to find out at a congressional hearing Wednesday why President Obama and his administration continued to promote and refinance $528 million in stimulus loan guarantees to the now-bankrupt solar panel maker Solyndra even after warning signs emerged.
“Many of us think he was trying to get the money out the door perhaps for political reasons, and in the end taxpayers lost over half a billion dollars,” said Rep. Cliff Stearns, R-Fla., chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, whose hearing is part of a seven-month investigation.
Uh oh. (more)
The ABC News report made a point of questioning why the Solyndra stimulus loans went through despite warning signs of problems with the company, making the point that one of the key people in the deal was a large fundraiser for Obama's 2008 campaign (and a Solyndra investor) who made several visits to the White House shortly before the loans were announced. ABC used a lot of video footage showing Obama touring the plant and touting it as a job creating action by the government.
Now White House emails have been found that show there were questions being asked about the loans behind the scenes; the FBI has raided the company to seek evidence it may have misled the government, over half a billion of the taxpayer's dollars are gone, and a thousand people are now out of work. If that's the way the story gets spun out over the ongoing campaign season, it's not going to be good.
Timing is Everything
It's hard to imagine worse timing for the White House on this. Just when the President is starting a campaign to push his modest jobs proposals through Congress, this story breaks. House Republicans are already licking their chops over the opportunity to A) hold this up as an example of wasteful government spending, B) a failure of the stimulus package, C) crony capitalism by the Obama White House (remember, these people have no shame), D) express sorrow and regret that they have to look out for the taxpayer while corrupt tax and spend Democrats line their pockets, and E) demonstrate the need to take back the White House in 2012 to save the country from further follies like this.
And who knows? If they can push hard enough, turn up more questionable details, they just might start the impeachment machine up again. They have no shame, they have no compunctions. If they smell blood (even if they have to put it in the water themselves), they'll try to start a media feeding frenzy. And the media will be happy to go along, given past behavior and a story that writes itself.
Potentially, it could easily get worse and spread beyond the White House. A report from SV411 last week suggests the circle involved may be wider.
Tax-paying Americans may be annoyed to find out about Solyndra shoveling money to politicians and lobbyists while it was slurping from the public trough. At least hundreds of thousands of dollars in lobbying fees went to big name lobbying firms like the Glover Park Group and McAllister & Quinn. Among the elected officials to benefit from Solyndrical largess were Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV), Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA) and our very own Assemblymember Nora Campos (D-San Jose).
The point is, the Republican party never misses an opportunity to attack the Democratic party. This is one such for them IF Democrats allow it to happen. Bill Clinton presided over a booming economy, balanced the budget, and started paying down the deficit. He was able to put together a coalition that ended the atrocities in the Balkans. He won two elections by popular vote - and the Republicans hated him all the more for that. We've already seen they're willing to blow up the government. No one should believe they'll hold back if they see an opportunity. And no one should think failing to push back will gain any mercy from them.
The Democratic Response
Coulda, woulda, shoulda - how cringeworthy is it going to get? That depends on how big a kerfuffle the GOP can stir up - and how much help the Democrats give them. From the Democrats expect (on the basis of past behavior): silence, distancing, and condemnation. Expressing of doubts and regrets. Suggesting a special bi-partisan commission to "depoliticize" the matter.
Right.
You don't have to be a brainless, back-stabbing coward to be a Congressional Democrat, but there's more than a few who seem to think it's a job skill. Just remember guys, when you're in the troika and the wolves keep catching up, sooner or later it'll be your turn to be tossed over the side. Or, you can get smart and face them while you still have others on board to help you.
What should they say? Try these talking points:
• No one is covering this up. The FBI is aggressively pursuing its investigation, and if evidence of fraud and wrongdoing is uncovered, it will be pursued. If restitution is possible and warranted, it will be made to happen. There may have been no crime after all - it may have been unjustified optimism that the company could overcome the technical challenges at a price point that would make them competitive in a developing field. Sometimes shit fails to happen. Not every investment is a slam-dunk. Like CDOs...
• The $500 million did not simply go down the drain or into the pockets of crooks; before Solyndra failed, that money was paying salaries, encouraging the growth of suppliers, building a pool of experienced workers in a vital new technology, and it was already coming back to the treasury and the taxpayers in the form of personal income taxes. It was keeping roofs over people's heads, was being spent at a time when the economy needs more demand, and was being put to work to do things the country can actually use.
• Out of a total stimulus package of around $700 billion dollars, $500 million is way less than a tenth of 1% out of every dollar spent - and it wasn't wasted, not entirely. It was a gamble on a new technology, technology that is vital to our future. Some gambles don't pay off; the failure rate for new businesses with or without Federal help has always been a risk. But that's the point: taking risks is what made America great. The private sector is currently sitting on vast amounts of money and doing nothing with it. For the majority of Americans, that idle money is a far greater waste. It's not the Federal government that failed here, it's a risk-averse private sector that has failed to invest in jobs and the future of this country.
• The loan to Solyndra was a bet on America, one of many the government made that stopped the descent into economic chaos. But the job isn't done. We as a nation must continue to bet on ourselves if we are to have a future. Where the private sector fears to tread, time and time again the government has stepped in to blaze a trail. The Erie Canal. The Transcontinental Railroad. The Panama Canal. Grand Coulee Dam. The Internet. Time and time again private interests have flourished thanks to investment by the public. To insist on recriminations and craven timidity, to pursue false economy at the cost of investing in our future, is to ensure failure.
• Those who would complain government failure has cost a thousand jobs and wasted taxpayer money are strangely silent when it comes to the state of the American auto industry today. Where once proud names were going under taking with them hundreds of thousands of jobs, the government stepped in where the private sector would not. Government insistence on management changes, and partnership with labor instead of enmity has led to a resurgence. There are people today who have jobs, who are holding on, who are giving back to the country that helped them because they now they can - because the government believed in them when the private sector did not.
• To those who complain about the waste and the jobs lost, what have they got in response? How many jobs have they created by slashing services? How many jobs have they created by letting the rich keep more and more money instead of returning it to an economy that needs it more than ever? How many schools do they intend to close, fire departments to shutter, before they think that will be enough to turn the economy around? How much pain to no purpose do they intend to inflict on a country their failed policies have bled for years, with industries downsized or shipped overseas? How much more wealth do they have to send to the top, before the dam bursts and wealth finally trickles down on the rest of us? It's been over thirty years - when will they admit to failure?
Let's Be Prepared
Now is the time for ALL Democrats to join together and be ready to push back. If the Republicans try to turn Solyndra into a weapon, let's turn it in their hands and have it bite them back. It's time to stop letting them set up the narrative and we can do it IF we stop apologizing for believing in the American People and the government that serves them.
Let's not forget all that is at stake here. It's not just about 2012 and keeping the White House in Democratic hands. It's also about keeping the idea that the government can and does have a role to play in the economy beyond guarding the hoards of the wealthy and fighting their wars for them. It's about the government acting where the private sector can't or won't to do what the Public needs to be done. It's about investing in the future, making things happen. It IS about Hope - and change that we can not only believe in, but see with our own eyes.
Never give up, never surrender.
Wed Sep 14, 2011 at 2:22 PM PT: A few followups. There's a much more detailed diary about this today:
http://www.dailykos.com/...
NPR had a couple of good pieces on this afternoon:
http://www.npr.org/...
http://www.npr.org/...