Otterbein received a grant worth more than $80,000 for a federal work-study program in July 2009. Ignoring that fact, though, Romney proceeded to attack the stimulus in his speech to students:

ROMNEY: Then there was the stimulus itself. $787 billion of borrowing. It could have been entirely focused on getting getting the private sector to buy capital equipment, for instance. That puts people to work. Or to hire people. Instead, it primary protected people in the governmental sector, which is probably the sector that should have been shrinking.

Watch it:

Romney also mixed up the facts about the stimulus. In calling the stimulus a hand out for government programs (which he said “probably should have been shrinking”), Romney ignores that the last three years were the worst on record for government job losses. In calling the stimulus a failure, he ignores its obvious successes: It saved or created millions of jobs, turned around economic growth, and pulled the American economy away from the precipice of collapse.

According to CBO, between 300,000 and 2 million people who were employed in December owed their jobs to the stimulus. The Recovery Act’s impact on jobs peaked in 2010′s third quarter, when an estimated 3.6 million people were employed in jobs that were either saved or created by the Recovery Act. CBO also found that the stimulus:

– Raised real (inflation-adjusted) gross domestic product (GDP) by between 0.2 percent and 1.5 percent.

– Lowered the unemployment rate by between 0.2 percentage points and 1.1 percentage points.

– Increased the number of people employed by between 0.3 million and 2.0 million.

– Increased the number of full-time-equivalent jobs by 0.4 million to 2.6 million. (Increases in FTE jobs include shifts from part-time to full-time work or overtime and are thus generally larger than increases in the number of employed workers.)

The CBO also projects that in the first quarter of 2012, compared to what might have happened without ARRA intervention, CBO estimates the ARRA will raise the GDP by between 0.1 percent and 0.8 percent and will increase the number of people employed by between 0.2 million and 1.1. million.

– Fatima Najiy

RNC CHAIRMAN REINCE PRIEBUS: “Three years ago today, President Obama signed his ‘Stimulus’ into law, and it’s clear, by Obama’s own standards, that his signature economic plan has been an abject failure.”

SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE JOHN BOEHNER (R-OH): “Today, there’s no denying the fact that his ‘stimulus’ policies not only failed, they made things worse.”

HOUSE MAJORITY LEADER ERIC CANTOR (R-VA): “The Obama Stimulus failed to create the jobs that Americans were promised and piled up mountains of debt that our children and their children will have to repay.”

And there are more where those came from. But as Center for American Progress Director of Tax and Budget Policy Michael Linden explained, the stimulus did just what it was supposed to — slow and then reverse the economy’s dramatic decline:

In the second quarter of 2009, the first full quarter after the stimulus was passed, GDP still declines but at a much slower pace—just 0.7 percent—and then begins to grow again in the third quarter of 2009. Job losses also begin to slow down immediately. Leading up to the stimulus, we were losing more and more jobs each month. After the stimulus, fewer and fewer. And eventually we even start gaining jobs. And take a look at this. Private-sector layoffs actually peak in February 2009—the month the stimulus passed—and then begin a dramatic decline. By the one-year anniversary of the stimulus, private-sector layoffs are back down to pre-recession levels.

Watch Linden’s explanation:

As economists Alan Blinder and Mark Zandi wrote in their study “How the Great Recession was Brought to an End,” the effects of the stimulus were “very substantial, raising 2010 real GDP by about 3.4%, holding the unemployment rate about 1½ percentage points lower, and adding almost 2.7 million jobs to U.S. payrolls.” And there is literally no evidence backing up Boehner’s assertion that the stimulus made things worse. Try as they might, Republicans can’t make these numbers disappear down the memory hole.

With its investments into infrastructure projects, tax cuts, and aid to states, the stimulus was designed to curb the effects of the recession and turn the economy back around. Though Republicans have criticized the effort and subsequent attempts to stimulate the economy as “failed policies,” early analysis has shown that the stimulus saved and created millions of jobs and pulled the American economy away from the precipice of collapse.

In a new analysis, Center for American Progress Director for Tax and Budget Policy Michael Linden examined the American economy in three parts — before the recession, during the recession, and after the stimulus passed — to find out if the stimulus did, indeed, work. As the video below shows, there is no doubt that the stimulus turned the economy around and put it on the path to recovery:

GINGRICH: There are two good things from the standpoint of health. The first is, a very serious investment in health information technology, which takes us a significant step down the road toward really having electronic health records for every American and I applaud President Obama for developing and insisting on that approach. And second, a substantial amount of money for Medicaid, which will in fact help the states this year, at least in the short term period, to be able to pay their bills and to help hospitals and doctors who otherwise would face very severe cuts.

Watch it:

Gingrich now rarely mentions these provisions as he campaigns for the presidency in Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina, and instead condemns both the stimulus package and the Affordable Care Act in the broadest possible strokes, trying to obscure the fact that he has advocated for some of the very same provisions that President Obama has signed into law.

However, if Mitt Romney had been president in 2008, according to a campaign spokesman, he wouldn’t have passed the Recovery Act. Instead, he would have cut taxes for corporations and extended the Bush tax cuts, as well as opening up land for oil drilling:

Asked what President Romney would have done during his first days in office, in lieu of a federal stimulus, to address the market meltdown, Chen rattled off a few likely options: “Lowering the corporate tax rate. Enacting a permanent extension of the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts. Immediately ratifying our pending trade agreements with Colombia, Panama and South Korea. In the energy sector, freeing up the necessary land to enable greater domestic production.” He did not make clear how Romney would have steered these boilerplate conservative proposals through a Democrat-controlled Congress.

According to the CBO, extending income tax cuts and cutting the corporate tax rate are two of the least effective strategies for boosting economic growth and employment. For extending income tax cuts, only 10 cents to 60 cents in economic activity is created for every dollar spent. It’s at most 30 cents in economic activity for every dollar spent on corporate tax cuts.

Meanwhile, steps that put money directly into the pockets of low- and middle-income families or directly create jobs, like cutting payroll taxes or spending on infrastructure, have far higher bang-for-the-buck. These are the sorts of policies that President Obama has proposed in his American Jobs Act, but that Republicans have filibustered over and over.

It was the slew of tax cuts that were added to the stimulus in a misguided attempt to win Republican votes that watered down its effectiveness in the first place. If Romney had been running the show, that ratio would have evidently been even worse. Of course, considering that Romney’s economic plan consists of nearly $7 trillion in tax cuts that overwhelmingly go to the rich and corporations, perhaps this shouldn’t be a surprise.

Thompson has been a critic of the Recovery Act, saying that he was “disturbed” with the direction of the country following the stimulus vote, and his advisers highlighting it as an example of “runaway government spending.” But as it turns out, Thompson decided to kick off his campaign at a company that has benefited from stimulus dollars:

Former Gov. Tommy Thompson hasn’t been afraid to attack others for backing President Barack Obama’s controversial stimulus package. [...] So isn’t it odd that Thompson is officially launching his bid for the U.S. Senate today at a company that directly benefited from the Recovery Act?

Federal records show Weldall Manufacturing in Waukesha was awarded $300,000 in stimulus dollars in October 2010 under an energy project overseen by the state Department of Administration. Here are the project specifics.

The funding created about 100 jobs at the company. Not only did the Recovery Act help at that company, but it also went to aid several companies with which Thompson is involved. In fact, “Logistics Health of La Crosse – of which Thompson is the president – got $277,000 stimulus dollars for 3 contracts.”

Thompson explained that he was unaware that the company at which he made his announcement had received Recovery Act funding, but that “it was a good thing if it created jobs.”

Due to the success of the Treasury Grant Program, the U.S. will account for 85% of installations in the North American market. American installations could potentially reach 1.9 GW by the end of December — again doubling year-over-year installations.

Much of the activity in the last two quarters has been spurred by companies rushing to qualify for the Grant Program, an incentive through the Treasury that provides a cash payment worth 30% of a project’s cost. The program, which was created as part of the Stimulus package and is set to expire at the end of December, has been a resounding success.

The solar industry still has an investment tax credit in place through 2016. However, with many financiers unable to take full advantage of tax credits, some analysts expect the market to shrink. In an effort to keep the momentum strong, a coalition of 763 companies and organizations in the solar industry issued a letter to Congress yesterday urging political leaders not to let this crucial program expire. According to the coalition, available finance would be more than 50% less than it is today under the grant:

The 1603 Treasury Program has been a resounding success. Since its enactment, the program has leveraged over $22.8 billion in private sector investment to support over 22,000 projects utilizing a wide range of energy technologies in all 50 states. This has resulted in thousands of new American jobs.

The 1603 Treasury Program is an efficient finance mechanism that allows taxpayers and small businesses to maximize the return and value of existing energy tax incentives, and is technology neutral so it encourages the development of a wide variety of domestic energy technologies. Lastly, there remains a need for the 1603 Treasury Program. The tax equity market modestly improved in 2010, but still has not recovered to pre-recession activity. A July 2011 survey of the major tax equity investors by the U.S. Partnership for Renewable Energy Finance estimates expiration of the program would shrink the total financing available for energy projects by 52 percent in 2012. This would stifle job creation and severely restrict the market’s ability to leverage private sector capital to finance new domestic energy projects.

According to a recent report from EuPD Researched and commissioned by the Solar Energy Industries Association, an extension of the grant program could create as many as 37,000 direct and indirect jobs, while supporting 2 GW of additional solar installations through 2016.

As Europe continues its slide, the effects are sure to be felt in the United States, where the threat of a recession in 2012 is now greater than 50 percent. “It is not something that we would be insulated from,” Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said last week. “I don’t think we would be able to escape the consequences of a blow-up in Europe.”

But even with evidence that austerity is wreaking havoc on European economies, American policymakers remain intent on following that lead. But chasing Europe down the austerity hole is only ensuring that the U.S. will experience another “great recession,” according to economists surveyed by Politico:

“To engage in austerity right now would be a great mistake,” insisted Desmond Lachman, an economist with the conservative American Enterprise Institute. “It would push the economy into a great recession.” [...]

“We need to learn from the European recessions,” said David Walker, former comptroller general of the United States, “and structure our own program” accordingly. He, too, said he considers large, near-term budget cuts potentially disastrous. Walker and other experts said significant budget cuts are certainly necessary — eventually. But not now. [...]

“Austerity brings a cyclical contraction,” said Thomas Kleine-Brockhoff, a German who is senior director for strategy at the German Marshall Fund in Washington. “You can’t just slash. You also have to invest and reform.” In his view, U.S. politicians don’t seem to appreciate this because they hold “a dangerous philosophy of American exceptionalism, as if they were exempt from the rules of finance.”

Despite these warnings, congressional leaders — particularly on the right — continue to push for massive spending cuts to a variety of programs, while opposing economic stimulus that could spark growth and recovery. The House will vote this week on a radical Balanced Budget Amendment that would force bigger spending cuts than even the fiscal super committee could ever dream of, drive up the unemployment rate, and ensure that future recessions will be even more painful.

The GOP, along with some moderate Democrats, has opposed the American Jobs Act, which would inject money into the economy in the form of infrastructure investment, aid to states to hire teachers and public safety officials, and other measures designed for job creation. Instead, they have focused on anti-regulatory, anti-spending policies that have little (if any) effect on job creation.

As these economists noted, clear evidence exists across the pond that widespread austerity measures will only stunt economic growth and push the U.S. closer to the brink of another recession. Unfortunately, Congressional leadership continues to ignore them.

(HT: Catherine Rampell)

Rep. Chris Gibson (R-NY) taking credit for a solar program funded by the stimulus and other Obama programs.

Bucking the trend, at least for a day, Rep. Chris Gibson (R-NY) participated in a publicity event on Monday to celebrate the success of a government-backed solar energy initiative. Gibson spoke at the College of Nanoscale Science and Engineering at the University of Albany to announce a deal to keep 17 solar energy research jobs. The research center hopes to boost an effort to develop “thin-film” solar cells to be built in a 18,000-square-foot manufacturing facility near the campus. Speaking at the event, Gibson applauded the investment, but failed to credit how much of the money was authorized:

“Today’s announcement continues our region’s growth as the next place for 21st Century technology. This facility will preserve existing jobs and ensure that our area remains at the forefront of research into clean energy technologies that are so vital for our future. I applaud CNSE’s efforts to invest in our local communities and look forward to continuing to work with them to expand public-private partnerships here in Tech Valley.”

Earlier this year, the research center received a $5 million grant made possible in part by President Obama’s Recovery and Reinvestment Act, better known as the stimulus. During the election last year, Gibson made the stimulus a campaign issue and blasted his Democratic opponent for supporting such a “failed” policy.

The solar jobs are also made possible by the SunShot Initiative, a Department of Energy program started by the Obama administration to spur solar energy technological developments.

A recent ThinkProgress investigation found at least 60 Republicans writing letters to Secretary Steven Chu to request clean energy grants and loans for favored companies.

Aerial photo of site for Fisker Automotive facility in Delaware, made possible by a clean energy loan program

by Dave Roberts in a Grist cross-post

Here we go again.

ABC News and iWatch have a big new report out that desperately tries to lend an air of scandal to another Department of Energy loan guarantee. It’s a remarkable package, nearly 3,000 words and three ABC News segments full of handwaving and innuendo suggesting that there’s something shady going on, using the word “Solyndra” as often as possible, but in the end there’s … nothing. Not a single bit of evidence of wrongdoing or corruption. It’s a gigantic nothingburger. It just describes the loan program working exactly as it was intended to, but in a tone of dark insinuation.

The fact that there’s no there there will of course not impede the U.S. scandal machine. Already the Drudge Report has linked it, Sarah Palin has Tweeted it, right-wing blogs are flogging it … Next thing you know, other media will be hyping it to, because, you know, “questions have been raised.” And it’s off to the races all over again.

Just for the record, let’s walk through the facts.

The loan program in question is the $25 billion Advanced Technology Vehicles Manufacturing (ATVM) Loan Program, established in 2007 by the energy bill passed under George W. Bush. It’s intended to speed the introduction of more efficient vehicles into the U.S. market and help stand up domestic industries to supply those vehicles.

The ATVM program was fully funded in 2008 and began issuing loans in 2009. In June of that year, Energy Secretary Steven Chu announced the first three recipients: $5.9 billion to Ford, $1.6 billion to Nissan, and $465 million to electric automaker Tesla.

Then, in September 2009, DOE announced a fourth recipient: $529 million to California-based Fisker Automotive. The loan was finalized in April 2010 and announced at an event with Vice President Joe Biden.

At the time, Fisker had one vehicle under development and another planned, both plug-in hybrids; the loan was split between them. The smaller portion, $169 million, was devoted to helping Fisker work with U.S. suppliers to finish up the Karma, a $97,000 four-door luxury sedan. The larger portion, $359 million, was devoted to Project Nina, Fisker’s plan to develop a mid-market plug-in sedan. The company expects the Nina to cost around $39,000 and be in mass production (75,000-100,000 a year) by late 2012, with delivery to begin in 2013.

Everything seems to be going roughly according to plan. Fisker hasn’t missed any loan payments or asked for any further loans. Some regulatory issues pushed the Karma production schedule back a bit, but the first few are on the road now and there are 3,000 pre-orders for more. In October 2009, Fisker purchased the Wilmington Assembly plant in Delaware, which was owned by General Motors from 1947 until it was shut down in July 2009, to manufacture its Nina. The DOE loan is being used, in part, to renovate and upgrade the plant. In June 2011, Fisker started its first round of hiring, bringing on 120 engineers, technicians, and production workers at the plant.

So far so good, right? Sounds like what the 2007 Congress envisioned and Obama promised: a boost for a promising new U.S. company; jobs in an industry that’s been hit hard by the downturn; groundwork put in place for what promises to be a huge growth market. Where’s the scandal?

Like I said, the ABC/iWatch story is filled with vague insinuations, but I’ll try to extract and address the main charges, such as they are.

1. This is a subsidy for rich people.

The Karma is extremely expensive — around $100,000. It is indeed a car for rich people; the very first one off the production line went to Leonardo DiCaprio. Al Gore’s in line for one too. Yes, DiCaprio and Gore; this is a field day for gossipy media.

However, some perspective is in order. A small start-up trying to break into an automotive market dominated by huge, well-established incumbents has to start at the high end. It doesn’t yet have economies of scale or mass production capabilities; it needs to prove that it can create a working, reliable car; and it just needs to attract attention. Tesla did the same thing for the same reason. It’s a way to attract more investment.

So in a sense, yes, all government assistance to electric vehicles (or batteries) is “a subsidy to rich people” for the moment, because cutting-edge new products are expensive. The whole point of the assistance is to drive the cost down and accelerate the introduction of the products to a larger mass market.

Tesla and Fisker are both starting with high-end models and then moving aggressively into lower cost mass-market models. And remember: The bulk of the loan to Fisker is to support the Nina.

2. The cars are made in Finland.

As founder Henrik Fisker said, “There was no contract manufacturer in the U.S. that could actually produce our vehicle. They don’t exist here.” So the Karma is being assembled at a plant in Finland.

ABC seems convinced that we should be outraged by this. Taxpayers lending money to a company building cars overseas! Scandal-ish!

But, again: The DOE loan is specifically earmarked for spending inside the U.S. None of it will be spent in Finland. And, again: Fisker is in the process of upgrading a plant in Delaware to manufacture its next car.

And finally, I don’t know about you, but when I hear that a U.S. electric-vehicle company can’t find a manufacturer in the U.S. capable of assembling its cars, my first thought is not, “Well, screw that company, let’s not help them!” It’s, “Criminy, we need to get started creating the industrial infrastructure to support a domestic electric-vehicle industry!”

3. Fisker is a risky bet.

The ABC story makes this point as though it’s exposing some dark secret. But of course it’s f’ing risky! That’s the whole point: to help companies on the cutting edge, companies trying to break into established markets and shake up the status quo. Those companies are, by definition, risky. That’s why Congress set aside $7.5 billion as a loan loss reserve.

And Fisker isn’t that risky. It’s attracted $650 million in private investment since the DOE loan went through. It’s got a car in production. It’s gearing up to produce another. (The Nina is by far the riskiest element of this, simply because it doesn’t exist yet, so no one knows if it will live up to its cost and range projections.) There is always the risk that gas prices will do one of their random plunges right when Fisker introduces its mass-market plug-in, but if that risk were going to scare investors away then there would never be an electric-vehicle market at all.

The administration is to be lauded for taking risks, not scolded. Let’s just hope the endless media scandalmongering doesn’t destroy political will to take chances.

4. Fisker investors are close with the Obama administration.

This is the tricky one. The fact is, the world of big-time cleantech investors is relatively small and the people who are part of it are more likely than the average bear to be Democrats. They believe in clean energy; they are experts in it and advocates for it; for obvious reasons, they raised money and voted for Obama. Many advised his campaign and some advise his administration.

It is therefore inevitable that if government supports cleantech, some of that support is going to go to companies run or funded by big Democratic players. This is part of what’s made it so easy for the media to cast a vague pall of suspicion over the loan programs.

ABC and iWatch did a story in March straining mightily to make hay out of this. But it’s worth reading that story closely. It lists a number of cleantech loan recipients with ties to the Democratic Party. But that’s all it does, in the end: list them. At no point does it establish that there was any improper political influence in the process of reviewing and granting loans. Of course it does the usual he-said she-said — Republican Rep. Cliff Stearns (Fla.) charges favoritism; the administration denies it — but at no point is there any actual evidence of favoritism. At all.

The best ABC and iWatch can come up with is that a rich donor named Steve Westly, a cleantech investor with money in a number of companies that received DOE loans, served briefly on a White House advisory council on clean energy. As a DOE spokeswoman said, “Attending two meetings of a non-binding public advisory panel hardly gave companies supported by Steve Westly a leg up — especially considering the board has no decisionmaking role, isn’t involved in making grants or loans, and never even discussed those companies.”

Anyway, a certain amount of suspicion and skepticism is inevitable and probably healthy. Crony capitalism is bad no matter who’s doing it. And I’m not going to lie: If it were the Bush administration and fossil-fuel investors involved, I’d be extremely suspicious.

But the Bush administration was routinely and openly corrupt; the Obama administration has been, despite all the recent atmospherics, remarkably corruption-free. Unless some actual evidence of collusion or impropriety emerges — and to date there has been none — there’s no reason to assume otherwise … unless you’re a media outlet hungry for clicks and ad revenue.

Anyway, as you can see, ABC and iWatch have managed quite a feat here, pumping up the impression of scandal with absolutely nothing to base it on. We probably shouldn’t be surprised. ABC’s Brian Ross is famous in the blogosphere for mangling an RFK Jr. quote to gin up controversy. And iWatch — a project of The Center for Public Integrity that seemed so promising when it launched — has produced a depressingly large amount of empty clickbait. (I give you this gem: “Limousine liberals? Number of government-owned limos has soared under Obama.” I mean really.) The headline for the Fisker story on the iWatch site right now is “Another Energy Boondoggle?”, which manages not only to inaccurately imply that Fisker is a boondoggle, but also to inaccurately call Solyndra a boondoggle!

There’s more involved here than Obama’s political fortunes. America desperately needs a forward-looking energy policy. It needs to be acting aggressively to support the cleantech industries that are going to dominate the 21st century. But that is simply going to be impossible if a vacuous, click-hungry press corps is going to gin up controversy out of every single investment. That’s what Politico and iWatch are doing: training politicians to play it safe, to be timid in the face of the country’s challenges.

The clicks aren’t worth it, y’all.

As news outlets hype the ABC News piece about Fisker Automotive, a company that received an Obama administration loan program while creating jobs both in Finland and Delaware, Republicans are likely to pounce as well. Already, Rep. Tim Murphy (R-PA) appeared on Fox News to tout the Fisker story as part of a larger narrative about the failure of the Obama administration’s loan program. “On Solyndra, people are going to draw comparisons about [Fisker],” piped Fox News’ Bill Hemmer.Republicans exaggerated and misconstrued the controversy over Solyndra, a failed solar company that received a subsidized loan (originating from the Bush administration), to call to cutting all clean energy loan programs.

But before Republicans turn on the right-wing echo chamber to twist the Fisker story into some sort of case of wrongdoing, they should consider this ThinkProgress report about GOP lawmakers who have requested the same type of clean energy loans. According to the report, at least 62 requested green energy subsidies from the Obama administration. Both the Indiana and Louisina Republican delegations requested taxpayer money for energy efficient start-up car companies — using the same type of program obtained by Fisker Automotive:

– Reps. Todd Young (R), Larry Bucshon (R), Marlin Stutzman (R), Todd Rokita (R) and Dan Burton (R) signed a letter along with other Indiana lawmakers to Secretary Steven Chu requesting expedited action on a clean energy loan to Carbon Motors Corporation. The grant, the lawmakers claimed, would bring 1,500 jobs to Indiana while achieving “a positive impact on the environment.” View a copy of the Indiana letter supporting Carbon Motor’s Department of Energy grant request here. All five lawmakers voted ‘aye’ in a protest vote against Department of Energy clean energy grant programs.

– Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) wrote two letters to Secretary Steven Chu asking for clean energy loans for a plant that would build electric cars. The letter, sent in June of 2009, claimed that the company could create 4,000 jobs. The Associated Press and Climate Progress have reported on the letters here.

– Sen. David Vitter (R-LA) sent a letter to Secretary Steven Chu requesting “expedited consideration” of a fuel efficiency loan grant for V-Vehicle Company to build a plant in his state. The entire Louisiana congressional delegation cosigned the June 2, 2010 letter, including clean energy critics Reps. Bill Cassidy (R), John Fleming (R), Steve Scalise (R), and Rodney Alexander (R). Vitter also sent letters recommending clean energy loan guarantees for Red River Environmental Products and Next Autoworks Company. View a copy of Vitter’s clean energy loan requests here. Fleming, Cassidy, Scalise, and Alexander voted “aye” in a protest vote against Department of Energy clean energy grant programs.

Read the rest of the report here.

Herman Cain

Listen to Herman Cain on the campaign trail, and you’ll hear him mock President Obama’s stimulus program a dozen different ways. Cain calls the program “a waste of money” that “didn’t stimulate anything other than bigger government” and a failure. One problem with Cain’s barrage of attacks? He sat on the board of directors of American corporations that applied for and received millions in stimulus money.

According to his personal financial disclosure (view a copy here), Cain supplements his income by being a board member for several large corporations. As a board member, he collected $202,500 from Agco Corporation, a farm products company, and $259,008 from Whirlpool Corporation (including options and a board salary). A review of stimulus spending records reveal that Cain’s companies have eagerly accepted stimulus money:

– Agco Corporation received up to $5 million of stimulus grants to develop “supply systems to handle and deliver high tonnage biomass feedstocks for cellulosic biofuels production.”

– Whirlpool Corporation received a $19,330,000 stimulus grant from the Department of Energy to develop SmartGrid solutions.

– Whirlpool launched a special offer to encourage customers to take advantage of the stimulus program’s energy efficient appliance program. The company advertised that certain Whirlpool, Maytag and KitchenAid appliances are available for rebate through the $300 million rebate program authorized by the stimulus.

– Whirlpool also received two stimulus grants of $2,042,700 to develop next generation energy efficient refrigerators.

Luckily for Cain, one of his corporations did not appear to receive any tainted stimulus money. According to his disclosure, Cain received $120,000 for his role on the board of Hallmark Cards Inc, the holiday greeting card company. A search by ThinkProgress reveals zero stimulus dollars directed to Hallmark.

Russ Roberts offers the hyper-nihilistic take on macroeconomic stabilization policy debates:

The evidence for the Keynesian worldview is very mixed. Most economists come down in favor or against it because of their prior ideological beliefs. Krugman is a Keynesian because he wants bigger government. I’m an anti-Keynesian because I want smaller government. Both of us can find evidence for our worldviews. Whose evidence is better? I’m not sure it’s a meaningful question. My empirical points about Keynesianism won’t convince Krugman. His point don’t convince me. I am not saying that we will never get any kind of decisive evidence on the question. I’m saying it sure isn’t here now.

That seems insane to me. Did George W Bush sign a 100 percent tax cuts stimulus bill in 2008 because he favored bigger government? That doesn’t sound right to me. I think he did a 100 percent tax cuts stimulus because congressional Democrats were pushing for stimulus, because many of his advisers believed in New Keynesian economic models, and because he doesn’t favor bigger government. Or consider this. In the late 1990s, the Keynesian thing to do was to run budget surpluses. Right-wing critics of the Clinton administration disagreed with this, preferring to expend the surpluses on tax cuts. Left-wing critics of the Clinton administration also disagreed with this, preferring to expend the surpluses on new programs. Either way, whether or not one believed the country should be following the Keynesian prescription of budget surpluses had nothing to do with beliefs about big or small government.

Here are some Keynesian questions:

— Regardless of the merits of deficit-financed tax cuts, do you think the case for them is stronger during downturns and weaker during spells of full employment?
— Regardless of the merits of deficit-financed increases in food stamp spending, do you think the case for them is stronger during downturns and weaker during spells of full employment?

The Keynesian answer, in both cases, is “yes.” It’s true that if unemployment is high and Democrats are in office, then in practical political terms Keynesian ideas will lead to bigger government. But if unemployment is low and Democrats are in office, then in practical political political terms Keynesian ideas will lead to smaller government. And if unemployment is low and Republicans are in office, then in practical political political terms Keynesian ideas will lead to bigger government. And if unemployment is high and Republicans are in office, then in practical political political terms Keynesian ideas will lead to smaller government.

I think the critique that Roberts and others want to make of left-wing Keynesians like Paul Krugman is to accuse Krugman of some kind of dishonest opportunism, like he suddenly started embracing Keynesian solutions in 2009. But there’s no evidence for that. Here’s Krugman in August of 2008 arguing that the U.S. fiscal position is more tenuous than it appears and politicians should resist embracing new surplus-diminishing initiatives. He’s not pushing for bigger government.

But the Grant Program is set to expire at the end of this year. Although the grants have been a resounding success for the renewable energy sector, the program is politically tarnished because it was created under Obama’s stimulus program.

Allowing this program to get killed by election-year politics would be a major mistake, as it would severely limit the growth of a valuable industry that has boomed in spite of the lagging economy.

A new report out from the business-to-business market research firm EuPD Research shows the immense economic value that could be created with an extension of the program. According to the report, which was commissioned by the Solar Energy Industries Association, a simple one-year extension of the Treasury Grant Program could leverage an additional 37,000 jobs — a 12% increase over the baseline. That could also help bring an additional 2 GW of solar projects online from 2012 to 2016.

A five-year extension through 2016 could result in an additional 114,000 jobs — a 32% increase in employment.   That could result in an additional 7.3 GW of installations over the baseline scenario, as this figure shows:

All those jobs and installations would bring strong domestic value. In 2010, the U.S. solar industry even had a $1.9 billion trade surplus with the rest of the world and a $247 million surplus with China, according to a study from GTM Research. That report also concluded that 73 cents of every dollar spent on a U.S. solar installation stayed within the country.

Because there aren’t as many financiers with the “tax appetite” (i.e. profits) to take advantage of tax credits, the grant program is vital to bringing in additional investors and maintaining the current momentum in the solar PV sector.

The Treasury Grant Program is a simple, proven mechanism that should be at the top of any political leader’s “to do” list when considering job creation. Let’s not let politics get in the way of America’s fastest growing industry.

Related Post:

• Solar is the “Fastest Growing Industry in America” and Made Record Cost Reductions in 2010

ROMNEY: [Obama] thinks if you have cash on your balance sheet, you’re going to go hire people. No, you hire people if you have customers. The President doesn’t understand what makes the American economy go. I do. [...]

SCARBOROUGH: The question is, what do you do, as a conservative president who believes in limited government, if you do, to actually drive demand?

ROMNEY: Very simple. You make America the most attractive place in the world for entrepreneurs, for innovators, for investors. That’s what got us going in the first place.

SCARBOROUGH: How do you do that?

ROMNEY: Well, you say alright, we’re going to make sure our employer tax rates are competitive globally. We’re going to have regulations and regulators encourage the private sector, rather than crush it.

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Romney is absolutely right that the country is suffering from a demand-side economic crisis and that businesses won’t hire until they have more customers. But his remedies — corporate tax cuts and fewer regulations — would do nothing to spur demand.

Corporations are already sitting on hoards of cash, and it’s unclear how receiving more cash via tax breaks translates into more customers. It also terribly unclear how fewer regulations — which at the consumer level give people confidence that the products they’re buying won’t harm them or make them sick — translates into more purchasing power.

President Obama’s jobs plan, meanwhile, is aimed at the demand side of the economy (like the 2009 Recovery Act), providing tax breaks for the middle-class and fueling infrastructure projects that will require supplies and machinery. That’s likely why the economists who participated in a new Bloomberg News survey said that Obama’s jobs plan would prevent a double-dip recession.

SHELBY: Oh you mean his big tax increase and all that? Absolutely, I have a lot of reaction to it. We’ve seen this movie before. It’s like the son of stimulus. It’s always more taxes and not enough cuts.

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As the Senate Banking Committee’s ranking member, Shelby almost certainly knows that the Recovery Act did not raise taxes. In fact, it cut them by $288 billion, mostly through tax credits for 95 percent of working families. There were zero tax increases in the stimulus package, nor were there any cuts, as the entire purpose of the bill was to jumpstart the economy.

ISSA: Whether or not the federal government borrows money from overseas sources to keep teachers in XYZ state on the payroll seems to be stimulus II. It seems to be something that the states have to decide what the right number of teachers are, and fund that, and not have us borrow money from overseas to keep $30 billion worth of money to try to aid the states. We did that once. It’s time for us to say states have to step up to the plate. That’s a good example where I don’t think that belongs in this stimulus bill. I don’t think we should be maintaining government workers with borrowed money.

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As of March 2011, 132,000 teachers have been laid off since the beginning of the recession. Recent months have seen the sharpest decline in state and local jobs since the 1982.

In fact, federal payrolls have been mostly flat for years, even as the population has been growing. In November, President Obama announced a two-year pay freeze for 1.9 million federal workers.

Issa is also wrong to suggest that the first stimulus package was unsuccessful. At its height, Recovery Act funds were supporting up to 3.6 million jobs. In June of this year, Recovery Act funding was still supporting up to 2.9 million jobs.

According to David Leonhardt, if state and local governments had continued to hire at their previous pace, they would have added half a million jobs to the economy. In other words, government austerity over the past two years “has cost the economy about one million jobs.”

This Minnesota bridge was also rated "structurally deficient"

President Obama’s plan to kickstart the economy and put the American people back to work includes investing in the nation’s rapidly deteriorating infrastructure, which, as studies have shown, is in need of as much as $2 trillion in immediate investment just to bring it up to date. In the past, Republicans have agreed that infrastructure improvements are needed, but in the context of economic stimulus and in their effort to remain opposed to anything Obama offers, they have chosen to ignore the nation’s infrastructure and jobs crises. Unfortunately, that approach doesn’t mean either crisis will go away.

Republican leadership has continually blocked efforts by Obama and Congressional Democrats to invest in infrastructure improvements, and as a result, bridges and roadways in their states are crumbling. According to the Bureau of Transportation Statistics, about 12 percent of the nation’s bridges are considered “structurally deficient,” the same rating given to the Minneapolis bridge that collapsed in 2007, killing 13 people. Roughly another 12 percent are considered “functionally obsolete.” In four of the five states represented by Republican congressional leadership, the rate of structurally deficient or functionally obsolete bridges outpaces the national average. ThinkProgress compiled a breakdown of the status of roads and bridges in each of those five states and, where applicable, individual congressional districts:

OHIO: 27 percent of the bridges Speaker John Boehner’s home state of Ohio are either “structurally deficient or functionally obsolete,” while one-fourth of its roads are considered poor or mediocre. At the heart of the Midwest, Ohio’s share of the national highway system has 171 highway bridges that are structurally deficient. 10 of those bridges are located in Boehner’s own district. Indeed, Obama singled out the Brent-Spence bridge connecting Ohio and Kentucky as “one of the busiest trucking routes in North America.” A recent Cincinnati Enquirer investigation into the bridge noted that it “is one of only 15 major interstate bridges in the country labeled by the federal government as ‘functionally obsolete’ for failure to meet safety or traffic flow standards.”

KENTUCKY: More than one-third (34 percent) of the bridges in Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s home state are structurally deficient or obsolete, including the Brent-Spence Bridge. Of those bridges, 108 are located on the national highway system, according to the Bureau of Transportation Statistics. Nearly one in five of Kentucky’s roads are in poor or mediocre condition.

VIRGINIA: In House Majority Leader Eric Cantor’s home state, 26 percent of bridges are considered structurally deficient or obsolete, 104 of which are on the national highway system. Nearly one in four of the state’s roads are considered to be in poor or mediocre condition. In Cantor’s congressional district, 11 national highway bridges are considered deficient.

ARIZONA: In Senate Minority Whip Jon Kyl’s home state, 12 percent of the bridges are “structurally deficient or functionally obsolete.” Of those in the national highway system, 25 are structurally deficient. Indeed, a recent report found that the poor rural roads and bridges in Arizona, where 21 percent of roads are considered poor or mediocre, have earned the state the eighth highest rural traffic fatality rate in the nation.

CALIFORNIA: Home to House Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy, California is perhaps most in need of infrastructure improvement. Thirty percent of its bridges are “structurally deficient or fundamentally obsolete.” Though a well-traveled state, California has a whopping 976 bridges on its national highways that are structurally deficient; 24 of those bridges are in McCarthy’s district. California ranks 19th in the nation for percentage of rural bridges that are structurally deficient, and two-thirds of its major roads are in poor or mediocre condition.

Even as roads and bridges in their states fall apart, Republicans remain opposed to Obama’s efforts to invest in improvement projects. When progressives and Democrats pushed for more infrastructure spending in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, Republicans demanded a bigger emphasis on tax cuts. When House Democrats passed a jobs bill geared toward infrastructure investment in February 2010, Republicans derailed it in the Senate. And unless the GOP undergoes a radical shift in priorities in the next few months, yet another plan that will help solve both America’s infrastructure and jobs crises will die at the hands of Congressional Republicans.

The result, as statistics from these five states show, is that the country continues to watch its infrastructure crumble while leaders in the Republican Party sit idly by, refusing to do anything about it.

Rep. Tom Price (R-GA)

Many Republicans are already voicing their opposition to the proposal. Rep. Tom Price (R-GA), chair of the House Republican Policy Committee, spoke with NPR last night and revealed that his party’s opposition to the tax cut is rooted in class. The payroll tax cut, Price explained, is a “good nugget from a rhetorical standpoint, for the class warfare that [Obama] seems intent on fighting”:

SIEGEL: Well, let’s pick apart some of what he asked for today. Continuing the payroll tax holiday, both for employers and employees, Republicans on board with that possibly?

PRICE: Well, it’s a tax reduction in his eyes. In fact, it’s just a shift of the money to pay for Social Security. So, from a policy standpoint, it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. It’s a good nugget from a rhetorical standpoint, for the class warfare that he seems intent on fighting. But, you know, whether or not that survives, I don’t know. It doesn’t make a whole lot of sense from an economic standpoint because the money to pay Social Security recipients has to come from somewhere. If it’s not going to come from the payroll tax, then it’s going to come from the general fund. And so, then you’re just borrowing from Peter to pay Paul.

Obama’s plan to pay for the working class tax cuts is to end wasteful tax loopholes for corporations and wealthy investors. Price, who touts himself as a pro-growth tax cutter, is waging his own class warfare: protecting tax subsidies for billionaires to prevent substantive tax cuts for working families.