This week, Obama signed a $26 billion bill that eases state budget crises and saves 300,000 teachers and policemen from imminent layoffs. The trade-off was DOE's renewable energy and transmission loan-guarantee program: it lost $3.5 billion.
The WH assured Nancy Pelosi that they intend to restore the funds, and claimed there is enough money to support current projects, but the enthusiasm for this program has been tempered from the start. The Office of Management and Budget has been slow fund it, and it does not seem to connect guaranteeing capital to job creation and economic recovery. Harry Reid describes this trend here in a letter to President Obama.
Defecit hawks' war on spending is a war on the middle class, and the DOE's clean energy loan guarantee program is a prime example of how the government can support small businesses and create jobs. Access to working capital is the spine that supports "green economy" and "green jobs", and the lack of it stops the show.
continued at Daily Kos...
