[October 13, 2011] EDITORIAL: Ugly, uglier [The Pueblo Chieftain, Colo.] Tweet (Pueblo Chieftain (CO) Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) Oct. 13--THE MORE the public learns about the Solyndra loan-guarantee debacle, the uglier it gets. The $535 million loan guarantee approved by the Obama administration was part of the president's pledge to create five million "green" jobs. We'll get to that in a moment. Readers will recall that after receiving the federal funds, Solyndra then went bankrupt at the end of August. President Barack Obama has been trying to justify this decision, telling ABC news that "if we want to compete with China, which is pouring hundred of billions of dollars into this space . . . we've got to make sure that our guys here in the United States of America at least have a shot." In other words, it's the president's belief that federal bureaucrats can better allocate capital than can the investment community, where people put their own money at risk. Readers also will recall that, at the 11th hour when the green jobs loan guarantee program was to expire, the Obama Energy Department rushed through four more loan guarantees totaling about $5 billion. Oh, well, who cares about deficits and the national debt? Now it turns out that administration officials considered giving Solyndra a second loan of almost half a billion dollars, according to internal emails. House GOP investigators produced documents showing that last January a Solyndra lobbyist emailed a White House aide and referred to their conversation about a "Phase 2 loan guarantee application" that was "poised to impact jobs creation in 2010 on the order of doubling our Phase 1 jobs." And House Democrats released an email exchange between officials of the Office of Management and Budget last May that suggested the second application was for $649 million. Half a billion here, half a billion there and pretty soon we're talking about real money. Now, let's talk about President Obama's five million green jobs. During his tenure, the government has spent $90 billion for green jobs, but that has produced very few. The Employment and Training Administration got a $500 million grant to "train and prepare individuals for careers in 'green jobs.' '' Of that, about $162.8 million has been spent. Only about 53,000 people have been "trained" so far, only 8,035 have found jobs, and only 1,033 were still on the job after six months. So the tab to taxpayers to fund the training for those 1,033 individuals was about $157,000 apiece. Where can we sign up. You can thank Al Gore and his global warming acolytes for getting people to accept, lemming-like, the notion that we must create a "green" economy under the leadership of the federal government. President Obama may end up being the first lemming to dash into the ocean. ___ (c)2011 The Pueblo Chieftain (Pueblo, Colo.) Visit The Pueblo Chieftain (Pueblo, Colo.) at www.chieftain.com Distributed by MCT Information Services [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ]