Touted by Reid in 2010, stimulus-backed geothermal company headed towards bankruptcy
Another reminder of why government shouldn't try and pick the winners and losers in the economy. Despite receiving almost $100 million from taxpayers, Nevada Geothermal Power is going broke.
A geothermal energy company with a $98.5 million loan guarantee from the Obama administration for an alternative energy project in Nevada - which received hearty endorsements from Energy Secretary Steven Chu and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid - faces financial problems, and the company's auditors have questioned whether it can stay in business.In one sense, Sen. Harry Reid's prediction that government handouts to NGP would "put Nevadans to work" was correct. I bet bankruptcy attorneys are staying plenty busy with this one.
Much like Solyndra LLC, a California solar-panel manufacturer with a $535 million federal loan guarantee that went bankrupt, Nevada Geothermal Power (NGP) has incurred $98 million in net losses over the past several years, has substantial debts and does not generate enough cash from its current operations after debt-service costs, an internal audit said. ...
Mr. Reid, a Nevada Democrat who led passage of the $814 billion stimulus bill and worked to include the loan guarantee program to help finance clean-energy projects, predicted in 2010 that NGP would "put Nevadans to work" and declared that Nevada was the "Saudi Arabia of geothermal energy."
NGP's failure isn't an isolated case. It's just the latest in a long, long string of government failures when it comes to economic development.
It's (long past) time for the government to let individuals, not bureaucrats, pick winners and losers in the market place.
(h/t Boyd)
Read moreNRS 239 is clear: Government e-mails are public information
A follow-up to the public records subplot in NPRI's efforts to let CCSD teachers know they can opt out of CCEA, but only if teachers submit written notice to the union by July 15.
Last week, I detailed how CCSD rejected NPRI's public records request for the government e-mails of government employees.
A couple of people commented that there is a caveat in the law that makes those e-mail addresses confidential.
Wow! What a selectively incorrect context you provided for that quote! Here's the real context:Now the commentators are citing this LCB summary of the law, not the law itself, but even from the quote, you can tell it's not referring to government e-mail addresses - it's referring to e-mail address provided by citizens to the government agency.
"Finally, the release of personal information contained in government records was also covered in A.B. 188 (Chapter 307, Statutes of Nevada) of the 2005 Legislative Session. The bill required a government entity to maintain a secure database of electronic mail addresses and telephone numbers of persons who provide such information to the entity. Under this measure, the database is not considered a public record. ..." (Emphasis added.)
Here's what the law, NRS 239B.040, says (and I'm providing the links so you can go through and double-check everything for yourself).
(a) If a person or his or her agent provides the electronic mail address or telephone number of the person to a governmental entity for the purpose of or in the course of communicating with that governmental entity, the governmental entity may maintain the electronic mail address or telephone number in a database.Now that we've cleared that up, let me remind teachers that this is the last week of the year they can opt out of CCEA. Here's info on why many teachers are leaving and generic opt-out letter if you or someone you know would like to leave.
(b) A database described in this subsection:
(1) Is confidential; (Emphasis added.)
Why one teacher is urging other teachers to leave CCEA
For the past month, NPRI has been doing our best to let CCSD teachers know that they can opt out of the Clark County Education Association - but only by submitting written notice by July 15, which is this Sunday.
(A generic opt-out letter is here for any teachers looking to leave the union.)
As I talk with more and more teachers, I find that each teacher has their own reasons for leaving - some are upset with how union officials waste teachers' dues on lavish salaries, others are upset by union policies or politics and others are thrilled to learn about alternative educator associations, like AAE, that offer better benefits than CCEA for only $15 a month.
Nathan Warner is a fourth-grade teacher in CCSD. Here are his thoughts on why teachers should leave CCEA.
There's one obvious reason for relatively new teachers to not support the union: self-interest. The union does not represent these teachers. It eats its young, demanding raises for senior teachers at the expense of new teachers' jobs. But the problem is more complex than only the determined pursuits of opposing self-interests. There's no doubt that this is a losing issue, for teachers, for parents, for students. There are two more reasons that teachers should reconsider paying dues.Read the whole thing here.
The first is the tactics embraced by this union: bad-mouthing the district, behaving churlishly at official meetings and a refusal to face facts. ...
The second reason is that our work affects far more than our own isolated selves. It affects our families, our children and community. We help form people, giving them the ability and even the motivation to pursue their dreams and make their lives their own.
Teachers have a choice about leaving CCEA, but only if they submit written notice to CCEA's office by July 15. If you want your voice to be heard, act fast.
Hint: The problem isn't the car magnets
Every week, NPRI President Andy Matthews writes a column for NPRI's week-in-review email. If you are not getting our emails, which contain our latest commentaries and news stories, you can sign up here to receive them. Just enter your email in the box on the top right.
For today's week-in-review email, Andy explains it's President Obama's big government policies that are responsible for our economic malaise.
"The president who started off with such dazzle now seems incapable of stimulating either the economy or the voters."
Those words about President Obama come not from a conservative, libertarian or even a moderate, but from liberal New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd.
The numbers - 8.2 percent unemployment, 1.9 percent GDP growth, nearly $16 trillion in national debt, etc. - don't lie. And so now, even liberals are souring on Obama.
Most interesting about Dowd's column, however, is that it typifies the failure of those liberals to understand why everything is going so badly. Dowd continues:
His campaign is offering Obama 2012 car magnets for a donation of $10; cat collars reading "I Meow for Michelle" for $12; an Obama grill spatula for $40, and discounted hoodies and T-shirts. How the mighty have fallen. ...Got all that? Let's review one liberal's list of explanations for the president's woes: his lost ability to dazzle; his deference to Congress; his unwillingness to explain his programs; his failure to adequately combat propaganda from the opposition; his inability to lead boldly; his cautiousness; his restraint; his difficult childhood; and his identity crisis.
The legendary speaker who drew campaign crowds in the tens of thousands and inspired a dispirited nation ended up nonchalantly delegating to a pork-happy Congress, disdaining the bully pulpit, neglecting to do any L.B.J.-style grunt work with Congress and the American public, and ceding control of his narrative. ...
As president, Obama has never felt the need to explain or sell his signature pieces of legislation - the stimulus and health care bills - or stanch the flow of false information from the other side. ...
But superheroes and mythic figures must boldly lead. Obama's caution - ingrained from a life of being deserted by his father and sometimes his mother, and of being, as he wrote to another girlfriend, "caught without a class, a structure, or tradition to support me" - has restrained him at times.
In some ways, he's still finding himself ...
Hey, here's a thought: The president's real problems are his bad policies.
Now, we shouldn't completely dismiss Dowd's various explanations for Obama's troubles. Many of those factors - personality, temperament, communication skills, legislative strategy - can play a role in shaping a presidency. But it's pretty telling that Dowd neglects entirely the role that the president's policy choices have played in creating his present situation. Which is a shame, because those choices matter more than anything else.
Ronald Reagan was also known for dazzling audiences. He, too, had a difficult childhood. And he faced dishonesty from his political opponents and a hostile media.
Yet while years three and four of the Obama presidency have produced quarterly GDP growth of 0.4, 1.3, 1.8, 3.0 and 1.9 percent, the comparable periods of the Reagan years gave us growth at 5.1, 9.3, 8.1, 8.5 and 8.0 percent.
The reason for the difference is that, whereas Reagan pursued policies that lowered Americans' tax burden, decreased regulation and removed government obstacles to private-sector job growth, Obama has done the opposite. From his stimulus to his green-energy-subsidies agenda to his health-care overhaul, Obama's approach has always assumed that the proper solutions can be found in growing government. The results speak for themselves.
What Dowd and many others refuse to see is that businesses aren't foregoing new hires because Barack Obama was abandoned by his father or because his campaign is offering "I Meow for Michelle" cat collars. Nor are they simply waiting for him to "explain or sell his signature pieces of legislation." It's because they understand that the president's policies - higher taxes, more mandates, stricter regulations - make it impossible to take on the additional costs and risks that hiring new employees would entail.
Of course, to admit as much would require a fundamental reconsideration of the entire premise of the liberal/progressive worldview. It's not easy to admit you're wrong, especially for professional pundits who have touted liberal ideas - the same ideas that are failing today - for years.
It's a whole lot easier to blame a grill spatula.
Have a great weekend, and I'll see you next time.
Andy Matthews
NPRI President
Remember, if you'd like to receive the latest from NPRI, sign-up for our emails here. Enter your email address in the box on the top right.
8.2 percent unemployment yet another reminder: Obama, Reid stimulus was an epic failure
I've said it before, and I'll keep saying it, because the epic failure of the stimulus is the perfect case study of why government should quit interfering in the economy.
With news today that the unemployment rate remains at 8.2 percent, here's the one chart that says it all. From AEI:
(Click to enlarge)
The dark blue line is what President Obama promised the unemployment rate would be if we passed the stimulus. The light blue line is what he projected unemployment to be without the stimulus. And the red dots are what actually happened.
The Labor Department said the U.S. economy created just 80,000 jobs in June, less than the 90,000 economists had been forecasting. And private-sector job growth was just 84,000, down sharply from 105,000 in May. Not doing fine.And to think, this "only" cost us and our children $787 billion plus interest.
The unemployment rate stayed at a lofty 8.2%.
As a research note from RDQ economics put it: "The good news is that employment growth is not slowing further but there is no sign of it picking up either. At this pace, job creation is not fast enough to lower the unemployment rate with the labor force growing at close to 150,000 per month on average." Shorter: Stagnation Nation
This continues to be the longest streak - 41 months - of unemployment of 8% or higher since the Great Depression. And recall that back in 2009, Team Obama predicted that if Congress passed its $800 billion stimulus plan, the unemployment rate would be around 5.6% today. ...
But those top-line numbers actually overstate the health of the labor market.
- If the size of the U.S. labor force as a share of the total population was the same as it was when Barack Obama took office - 65.7% then vs. 63.8% today - the U-3 unemployment rate would be 10.9%. Even if you take into account that the LFP should be declining as America ages, the unemployment rate would be 10.5%. (Emphasis original.)
As for me, I'll take freedom - and the economic prosperity for all that's produced by entrepreneurs, not bureaucrats.
Who's with me?
Irony: Union attacks CCSD for giving NPRI public information that CCSD is withholding from NPRI
There's a public-records subplot to NPRI's efforts to let CCSD teachers know they can leave the Clark County Education Association from July 1-15.
Almost a month ago, NPRI requested the work e-mail addresses for all teachers in the Clark County School District under NRS 239, Nevada's public-records law. In part, NRS 239.010 reads:
4. A person may request a copy of a public record in any medium in which the public record is readily available. An officer, employee or agent of a governmental entity who has legal custody or control of a public record shall not refuse to provide a copy of that public record in a readily available medium because the officer, employee or agent has already prepared or would prefer to provide the copy in a different medium.Basically, we requested the work e-mail addresses of government employees. Information doesn't get more public than that.
But, as is far too often the case with CCSD, the district hasn't fulfilled NPRI's records request. CCSD officials told NPRI they'd respond by June 22, then said they'd respond by July 3 (today) and on June 29 sent us a question about our request. They still haven't responded. In other words: delay, delay, stall and more delay.
As Sen. Ben Kieckhefer noted on Twitter this morning, "I'm curious as to how law dictates the Gov of NV must turn over actual e-mails but CCSD won't even provide people's e-mail addresses."
So, here we have CCSD not (yet) fulfilling a request for public information.
On Friday, we e-mailed more than 12,000 teachers information on how to leave CCEA, using a partial list of addresses not obtained through CCSD.
Along with attacking NPRI for letting teachers know they have options regarding CCEA membership, the Las Vegas Sun reports that CCEA officials are upset with CCSD for supposedly giving us teacher e-mails and are "conducting their own investigation."
But CCEA's not investigating why CCSD is violating state law by not fulfilling NPRI's records request. CCEA is investigating whether CCSD gave NPRI teacher e-mails, which CCSD did not do, but should have under NRS 239.
In other words, if CCSD officials had given NPRI teachers' e-mail addresses (which they didn't), CCSD would just be following state law. Instead, CCSD officials are stalling NPRI's request, which is what CCEA wants, and CCEA is throwing a fit.
The irony is rich here. And this would be hilarious, except we still don't have our public records.
So who does CCSD give access to its e-mail system? CCEA and its other employee unions.
Although the district's four unions representing administrators, police, support staff and teachers are able to use the email system to contact their constituents, outside groups - such as vendors and non-union political groups - are not privy to this e-mail database, Fulkerson said.Good grief.
CCEA upset that NPRI is informing teachers they have options regarding CCEA membership
For the past few weeks, we at NPRI have been doing everything we can to let CCSD teachers know that they can opt out of the Clark County Education Association from July 1 to 15 by sending written notice to CCEA's headquarters (an opt-out letter with CCEA's address is here).
On Friday, we sent out an email to 12,000-plus teachers telling them directly that they are able to leave CCEA during the "July 1 to 15" window. The email contained this commentary, which tells teachers how to leave CCEA and five reasons teachers are doing so.
And, via the Las Vegas Sun, CCEA officials are not happy.
Still, union officials saw NPRI's email blast as a direct attack on the union, which draws the majority of its funding from union dues. Union membership has been on the decline since the recession.This is amazing isn't it? All NPRI is doing is letting teachers know they have a choice about belonging to CCEA (but only for two weeks!) and letting teachers make an informed decision. We give teachers the chance to make their own choice.
Compare that to union officials. Union officials are upset teachers are learning that teachers have options. Union officials have put the opt-out period during the two most inconvenient weeks of the year for teachers. Union officials don't want teachers to learn that alternative organizations like AAE offer better insurance and legal protection than CCEA at a fraction of the cost.
Why don't union officials want teachers to make the choice that's best for them?
When the legislature meets again, lawmakers should outlaw these restrictive "drop periods" and allow teachers and other public employees to leave their union whenever they want - just like they can join a union at anytime. Until then, though, CCSD teachers wanting to leave CCEA only have until July 15.
Tell a teacher you care about.
Food stamps vs. not feeding the wildlife
Exactly.
We have not yet begun to fight
Every week, NPRI President Andy Matthews writes a column for NPRI's week-in-review email. If you are not getting our emails, which contain our latest commentaries and news stories, you can sign up here to receive them. Just enter your email in the box on the top right.
For today's week-in-review email, Andy reviews the Supreme Court's decision on the Affordable Care Act and urges freedom lovers to continue educating their friends and familes on the negative impacts of this law.
So ... how you feeling today?
Shocked? Outraged? A little depressed? All I can say is: Shake it off. We've got a lot of work to do.
In a 5-4 decision that surprised many observers (this one included), the U.S. Supreme Court yesterday upheld the core provisions of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, including its most controversial element: the individual mandate. Most surprising of all was that it was John Roberts who provided the pivotal vote, the chief justice joining the four reliably liberal justices in the majority.
There's plenty to lament about this decision. Because ACA is still the law of the land, the threats it poses to businesses, individuals and state budgets - which my NPRI colleagues and I have already highlighted extensively - remain just as real and just as serious today as they were a couple days ago. It's beyond frustrating to know that just one vote in the other direction would have struck this disastrous law down once and for all.
At the same time, it's worth acknowledging that the ruling wasn't all bad. In upholding the provision requiring individuals to purchase health insurance, the Court rejected the argument that Congress had the power to establish the mandate under either the Commerce Clause or the Necessary and Proper Clause. Instead, wrote Roberts in his majority opinion, it is under Congress' power to tax - in this case, to tax those who choose not to buy insurance - that the provision passes muster. In other words, the Court rejected the idea that the federal government can explicitly compel you to purchase a product on the private market. In the long run, the Court's affirmation that there are at least some limits on congressional power under both the Commerce Clause and the Necessary and Proper Clause is a very good thing.
Of course, in the short term, that's of little consolation to those who would have to deal directly with ACA's practical consequences.
Yet it's still entirely possible that they won't have to.
What happened yesterday was that the quick and conclusive victory that ACA's opponents had hoped for didn't come. But the fight isn't over.
Now, instead of a legal fight, it simply becomes a political fight. Arguments over the law's constitutionality will be replaced by arguments over its policy implications. And voters and policymakers, rather than judges, will have the ultimate say.
The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act was enacted by Congress and signed by the president. Its undoing, if it is to occur at all, will have to come by a similar path.
What this means is that you and I need to make sure we win the policy argument. We need to continue to demonstrate to elected officials, candidates, members of the media, our friends, family members and other associates, how ACA will exacerbate, rather than ameliorate, the problems plaguing America's health care system.
We need to point out that it will drive up the costs of health care while decreasing access and quality. That it will make it harder for business owners to hire more workers at a time when unemployment is already unacceptably high. That the fiscal strain it will place on state budgets will crowd out legitimate government services all across the country.
And we can't let anyone forget that, as the Supreme Court said, this is a tax, and it represents one of the largest tax increases in the history of our nation - one that will be borne disproportionately by low- and middle-income Americans.
Constitutional or not, the reality is that our nation and its citizens simply cannot afford this law.
And we cannot afford to lose this fight.
But to win, we must do more than simply expose the problems with the law. We must clearly articulate superior, free-market alternatives. NPRI's press release from yesterday is a good place to start.
So keep your spirits up, and keep fighting. There's a long way to go on this yet.
Take care, and I'll see you next time.
Andy Matthews
NPRI President
Remember, if you'd like to receive the latest from NPRI, sign-up for our emails here. Enter your email address in the box on the top right.
Obama to public: ACA not a tax increase; Obama in court: ACA's a tax increase
Now this is a great trick. Publicly, President Obama and his allies claimed, promised and assured the American people that the individual mandate contained in the Affordable Care Act wasn't a tax increase.
Anyone remember this?
Once the constitutionality of ACA was challenged, however, they immediately claimed the individual mandate was constitutional, because it is - voila! - a tax increase, not a penalty.
And ultimately, that's the tortured logic Chief Justice Roberts used to rewrite the law and rule Obamacare constitutional.
Ed Whelan makes a similar point over at Bench Memos:
The Obama administration got away with its bait-and-switch, first denying that the penalty for non-compliance with the mandate was a tax (and winning more favorable scoring from the Congressional Budget Office in the process), then salvaging the mandate-with-penalty on the ground that it could be reconceived as a tax. Any "tax," of course, is a tax on being uninsured - not, I would suspect, a tax that will suddenly win a lot of favor among the American people.Just another example of how liberals will tell the American people one thing and then claim the exact opposite in court.
