Today we continue our series on renewable energy. Unfortunately, there is some bad news to report:

http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2010/08/11/renewable-energy-backers-wince-as-congress-raids-doe-coffers/

President Obama and Congressional Democrats just passed into law new spending for teachers and government employees. And from where did the extra money come?

“The $26 billion bill President Barack Obama signed Tuesday may spell relief for teachers’ unions and other public-sector employees, but it’s the latest blow for renewable energy backers. To help pay for the aid bill, lawmakers cut $1.5 billion from the Department of Energy’s renewable energy loan guarantee program. It’s the second time in roughly a year that Congress has raided the program to fund other priorities. Last summer, lawmakers cut $2 billion from the DOE’s renewable energy loan account to extend the highly popular Cash for Clunkers program. Congress has not repaid the agency that $2 billion, despite frequent promises by its leaders to do so. Taken together, the cuts have whittled the program’s budget down to $2.5 billion, less than half the $6 billion Congress appropriated in early 2009.”

Not only is this money being wasted on salaries for civil servants, but it’s taking money out of vital renewable energy programs. We need to be spending less money on government bureaucrats and more money on renewable energy projects that will help us build the future.

What else should Obama do now?

He should confront his base. Every great political leader has the courage to tell his/her followers when they are wrong. Think of Reagan negotiating with Gorbachev when most conservatives were furious about it. Turns out Reagan was right.

Unfortunately, in the first 12 months of the Obama presidency, we have not seen many examples of this kind of presidential leadership. In fact, we’ve seen the opposite. Perhaps the best example was the stimulus package, where the White House essentially let Speaker Pelosi and Senator Reid write the bill.

If President Obama will start being more forceful with his own party, he will start to win back some of the independent voters that he has lost in the past year.

Remember when the Obama stimulus was going to turn the economy around?  These days, the White House doesn’t even pretend to believe that anymore:

http://www.politico.com/politico44/perm/1209/stimulus_big_enough_d73b7ad9-b743-4181-92fa-bfb2bcadbe6f.html

As the article notes, the White House now sheepishly says that “we got what we could get” with the stimulus package and that it was the “political load that could be carried.”

What?  So we passed a $787 billion spending bill not because it would work but because it was politically feasible?  No wonder the stimulus hasn’t worked.  It wasn’t designed to work.  Instead it was designed to show the government busy doing something.  But as a great writer once put it, there is a difference between motion and action.  The Obama White House has given us lots of motion and little action.

But here’s the sad part: the White House is talking about doing even more to “stimulate” the economy.  I say “no thanks” to that.  Let’s let entrepeneurs and business leaders lead this economy.  We don’t need anymore of Washington’s “political load.”

Remember when the Obama stimulus was going to turn the economy around?  These days, the White House doesn’t even pretend to believe that anymore:

http://www.politico.com/politico44/perm/1209/stimulus_big_enough_d73b7ad9-b743-4181-92fa-bfb2bcadbe6f.html

As the article notes, the White House now sheepishly says that “we got what we could get” with the stimulus package and that it was the “political load that could be carried.”

What?  So we passed a $787 billion spending bill not because it would work but because it was politically feasible?  No wonder the stimulus hasn’t worked.  It wasn’t designed to work.  Instead it was designed to show the government busy doing something.  But as a great writer once put it, there is a difference between motion and action.  The Obama White House has given us lots of motion and little action.

But here’s the sad part: the White House is talking about doing even more to “stimulate” the economy.  I say “no thanks” to that.  Let’s let entrepeneurs and business leaders lead this economy.  We don’t need anymore of Washington’s “political load.”

Here is another classic example of why you shouldn’t put too much faith in government efforts to jump start the economy:
http://www.usatoday.com/printedition/news/20091211/1afedpay11_st.art.htm?loc=interstitialskip

So, in the midst of one of the worst recessions in memory, the only people making money are civil servants!  According to this story:

“Federal employees making salaries of $100,000 or more jumped from 14% to 19% of civil servants during the recession’s first 18 months — and that’s before overtime pay and bonuses are counted.”

In other words, one out of every five federal employees now makes more than a $100,000.  Incredible.  I guess when the president talked about a jobs stimulus plan, he meant people who work for the public sector, not the private sector.