For President Barack Obama, 2011 began with a bang — a bold pronouncement that his green dream for America would bring forth a jobs explosion and a new economy fueled by alternative energy, a vision he likened to President John F. Kennedy’s “moon shot” in the 1960s. Much to Obama’s chagrin, the year has ended in a whimper with his green energy “sun shot” sputtering to the ground before it even took off.
The President set the bar awfully high in his State of the Union Address last January, hailing alternative clean energy as “our generation’s Sputnik moment” and claiming that it would be ”an investment that will strengthen our security, protect our planet, and create countless new jobs for our people.” The President said, “Already, we’re seeing the promise of renewable energy.” Unfortunately, what the President predicted is much different than what the rest of the country experienced in the ensuing year. The jobs that the President promised didn’t materialize, and his green energy investments are careening into the ground, not shooting to the moon.
That news was sealed in The Washington Post this week with a story that didn’t see much light of day, published as it was on Christmas Day. The Post reported that politics, not policy, has been largely behind the President’s green jobs program:
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