FEDERAL BAILOUT PROGRAM CONTAINS BENEFITS FOR GREENS
Editors Note! I realize I am a little bit late to getting around to the following posting, but for the last month or so – - basically since the Presidential Election – - I just didn’t have the urge to see or read my own voice. Blogging burnout, I think the malady is known as. And after seven long years devoted here and at the Recoveringliberal.com, I was due. But no matter, that has passed. I am now back and as critical as ever.
So here goes…
In the time I have been regrouping, much has happened. One of the major events worthy of comment is George Bush’s $700 billion dollar parting gift to the financial industry, know in financial circles and among those trying to sound smart as the TARP, which is short for the Troubled Assets Relief Program.
Talk about Christmas for adults, this bold and blatant giveaway to administration cronies on Wall Street and in the banking industry is just the latest clusterfuck in a presidential administration known for clusterfucks. (Think Katrina, Abu Ghraib, Iraq, Afghanistan, tax breaks for the wealthy, etc.)
The sad fact is with over 50% of the cash disbursed, no one, not Congress, not the White House, no one knows what the hell the money went for. It was supposed to bolster the sagging financial industry with enough ready cash so they could start making loans again, and refinance the ones already issued that were troubled. But to date it appears that neither of these things has been done, nor does it seem that they will be done any time in the future.
In essence friends, once again we have been screwed.
But all is not gloom and doom, I am happy to report. First off, Congress did not release all of the funds to the Bush administration. So we are lucky in that only $350 billion dollars are missing and not the entire $700 billion. Then there are the gifts for environmentalists that the boys and girls on Capitol Hill managed to tack onto the legislation creating the TARP over White House’s opposition.
These include:
A $3,000.00 credit for the purchase of plug-in hybrids;
The extension of the 30% tax credit for new solar power facilities through 2016; and
The replacement of the $2,000.00 tax credit limit for those who install solar panels on their homes with a more generous 30% federal tax deduction. The best part is that this deduction is in addition to any state incentives, which may be available.
Also included in the legislation were incentives for bio-fuel and wind, which while they are less generous than those offered for solar and for plug-in hybrids are real all the same.
Now we just have to have the money to buy the plug-in hybrids and the solar panels, which in our country’s current economic tailspin is not that easily forthcoming.
What the incoming administration needs to do – - among the thousands of things already on its plate – - is to figure out a way to make cheap, affordable financing available to homeowners to finance their conversion to solar. I think a program, which would allow homeowners to pay for the installation over ten or twenty years would be in order. This way the money that they would normally pay to Edison could be redirected to finance the conversion.
What do you think?
LIB
