There was so much nonsense in Obama's State of the Union address last night, it could take days to deal with everything. Hey, we've got days. But I want to start with this, because it's a classic example of how Democrats justify big-government forays that are hard to defend on their own merits:
“Other countries dominated the clean energy markets. We’ve started to change that. As long as countries like China go all in on clean energy, so must we.”
So why is it again that government must subsidize into "green energy" notions for which neither the technology nor the market demand is ready for prime time? Why do we have to put hundreds of millions into the next Solyndra or Tesla without regard for what happened to the originals? Because other governments are doing it! And we have to "win the race" or whatever.
Democrats love to justify interventions into free markets by painting everything as a global race between nations, such that if you prefer to let the private sector drive these initiatives, you're unconcerned with American victory in the "race." Why, it's downright unpatriotic!
Given the outcome of our intervention in the green energy market thus far, I'd say this is a race we'd do quite well to let China "win." Let their government take the hit while we learn from their mistakes (and ours) and let these technologies mature naturally, without the political hubris that makes us think it will happen before it's time just because we throw a lot of money at it. If China decided to jump off a bridge . . . OK, you've heard that one before from your mother. Maybe your mother needs to have a word with Obama.
