Oops!

Readers of this column may be taken aback that this columnist would immediately delve into controversy with this title.  Perhaps no word has triggered so much debate as to the when, where, why and how that definitively defines an “oops”.  Is it that scrumptious honey glazed spiral ham you so graciously brought to your neighbor’s celebration dinner for their son’s Bar Mitzvah?  Or is it wearing your favorite Peyton Manning jersey to an exclusive tour of Gillette stadium by Robert Kraft?  How about that date with your dream hottie, who spends the whole night peppering you with questions about your younger brother?  Ah, ever the eternal nagging question.  What is an “oops”?  Well, the leaders of the Democrat Party and their allies have been kind enough in recent weeks to give some much needed clarity to this highly contentious and, yes, confusing issue.

The recent almost religious fixation with green energy from the Democrat Party has driven the nation deeper and deeper into the red.  More than half a billion dollars was awarded to one business, Solyndra.  This is, well was, a solar panel company which had a brilliant business model of producing solar units at a production cost of  $6 per unit and selling them at $3 per unit.  You know I’m just a logger turned construction guy but even I can tell that’s probably not a good business model to work from….probably….just saying.  Anyway, no surprise that Solyndra along with a myriad of other green energy companies created a log jam at the President’s door at the advent of the last stimulus engorgement bemoaning the fact that their businesses could not survive or even get off the ground without an infusement of tax dollars.  In a normal world, at this point a government would remind these businesses that government does not pick winners and losers.  If their business cannot withstand the scrutiny of the free market, it is not worthy to stand in the free market.  But we are in the new normal.  We have hope and change.

Solyndra convinced the Obama administration that building units for $6 and selling them at $3 is new cutting-edge business and, not to worry, losing money at a $3 per unit clip is indeed a safe and secure way for the taxpayers to realize a return on their precious hard earned funds.   One company alone was given more supposed job creating stimulus dollars than 35 States combined received for “shovel ready” jobs.  Then this company went bankrupt, the money disappeared and no one is talking.  That’s a colossal “oops”!

Or is it?  Somehow the name Rahm Emmanuel keeps popping up intertwined with all of this.  The owners of many of these green energy, cutting-edge, now-over-the-edge businesses are major Democrat donors.   Billions of dollars are funneled or given (did I say funneled? Oops) to these businesses and few weeks later they go belly up, bankrupt.  And the money disappears.  Oh, and all the workers who are not so stimulated as they are now out of work are being given tax payer funded “trade adjustment assistance”.  More money, as if half a billion wasn’t enough.

You know, in some sectors of society, say like the underworld of Chicago for an example, a business that is created to do nothing but lose money is called a front for the ….well, you know.  Oops!  Did I say that?  Oh, yes I did!  And there is more to come in the “Oops Saga” -both in Washington and right here in Maine.  See you next week!