Marking One Year Since Solyndra's Bankruptcy

Update: Heritage Foundation reports that Major Obama Bundler Steve Westly Rewarded With Convention Speech - Venture corporatist Steve Westly benefitted personally and financially from President Obama’s push for green energy after supporting the president with major campaign contributions. Tonight he’ll take the stage in Charlotte, NC, for a high-profile speech. Westly heads up the California-based venture capital firm the Westly Group. He bundled more than $500,000 for Obama’s 2008 campaign, and another $200,000 to $500,000 for his reelection effort. Westly chaired the Obama...

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It was a year ago that Americans learned that Solyndra, a solar panel manufacturer in California that was awarded a $535 million loan guarantee from the Obama administration, was going bankrupt. In light of this anniversary, it’s worth revisiting what some editorials said about the whole debacle.

The Wall Street Journal wrote, “Solyndra received federal help in 2009 and never turned a profit.Earlier [in 2011], DOE reworked the Solyndra loan guarantee as the company floundered and put private creditors ahead of taxpayers. This newspaper reported . . . that Treasury raised alarms about the legality of such a move, although it’s unclear when that happened.”

The WSJ concluded, “When government takes $535 million and invests in a loser, it not only wastes taxpayer money but it also denies that capital to some other project in the private economy that might have succeeded. The Solyndra emails show how ill-equipped government is to predict the industries of the present, much less the future.”

USA Today wrote, “[W]hen President Obama visited Solyndra’s plant in Fremont two months later, he gave a rousing pep talk and declared that ‘the future is here.’ Alas, it wasn’t. Solyndra continued to struggle, canceled a planned public stock offering and filed for bankruptcy [in September 2011] — leaving the U.S. government as its biggest creditor and raising new questions about whether Uncle Sam should be playing venture capitalist. Despite initial misgivings about the company’s viability, an Energy Department program aimed at boosting ‘clean energy’ projects had guaranteed a $535 million loan to Solyndra, which produced an innovative but expensive solar panel. Taxpayers are now on the hook for some or most of that money . . . . Even if Solyndra’s collapse is nothing more than good intentions gone awry — a big if — it is a cautionary tale about why government should be extremely wary about betting tax dollars on specific companies. If there’s one thing the marketplace virtually always does better than government, it’s picking individual successes in an uncertain and highly competitive business. In fact, government involvement can unfairly tilt the playing field toward one company and away from competitors.”

And the Chicago Tribune wrote, “Fast forward to the not-so-bright and prosperous present: Solyndra is bankrupt, its factory shut down and its workforce on the street. The FBI raided its headquarters [in September 2011], presumably suspecting fraud. . . . [S]taffers reviewing the deal were voicing concerns about not having sufficient time to conduct proper due diligence on the financial underpinnings of the loans. The evidence suggests taxpayer dollars were put at undue risk for the sake of an administration photo op. . . . At a minimum, this episode illustrates the perils of sinking taxpayer dollars into risky private ventures. A thorough review may turn up many other problems, but this much we know: Solyndra made a bad bet. . . . Public investments, however, must be based on due diligence. Not big money politics. Not stimulus rollout timetables. Not sun-struck ideology. The government gets on thin ice when it starts picking business winners and losers.”

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Tags: Barack Obam, I did that, Obama administration, Solyndra, loans, bailout, bankruptcy, taxpayers To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!