Written by Adam Bitely

Monday, 21 September 2009 14:38

Green Jobs

The Washington Post reported today that an audit turned up waste in several Green Projects that are run by the Energy Department. While this is unsurprising, this is the same agency that is being tasked with determining where billions of dollars of the Stimulus Bill are going to be spent. Even more troubling is that the initiatives that are being determined as wasteful are the exact types of projects that the funding from the stimulus bill are dedicated towards.

As Robert O'Harrow Jr. wrote: "The initiatives are hallmarks of the $787 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act approved by Congress in February. The stimulus law directed almost $17 billion to the department's Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, including $3.2 billion for energy-efficiency and conservation block grants and $3.1 billion for state energy programs."

$17 Billion is going to be spent on projects that are completely unnecessary. This is the reason that so many were banging the drum on why this type of "recovery" plan was not the right prescription for America.

O'Harrow goes on to say: "The explosion in green spending is occurring despite well-documented weaknesses at the core of the strategy: A chronic lack of government officials assigned and properly trained to oversee the financially and technically complex projects."

There are probably too many people overseeing this program. As well, there are probably too many people with special interests involved in deciding where the money should be allocated. This is what happens when you have Big Government.

The response is always the same when these types of programs are proven to not work--"Not enough oversight from the government, if only there had been more people involved." It takes only one person to see that the program was a bust, not hundreds. This is the type of mentality that has to be defeated. More government involvement does nto make anything work better and this has been proven time and again.