Leo W. Gerard: Gone with the Wind: Blowing U.S. Tax Dollars Off Shore

Description

It turns out a Texas windmill farm developer's request last month for nearly half a billion dollars in stimulus funds to create 2,000 jobs in China doesn't rank first on the audacity scale.

Shockingly for American taxpayers, and sadly for the staggering 10.2 percent of Americans who are unemployed, it doesn't even rank second.

That's because Washington already has doled out hundreds of millions in stimulus funds to foreign renewable energy firms. Of the $1.05 billion in clean energy grants awarded by D.C., $849 million -- 84 percent -- went to foreign wind companies, according to an analysis by Russ Choma of the Investigative Reporting Workshop. He wrote:


"The cash grants were given for the installation of 1,763 megawatts of capacity - 1,566 installed by foreign companies. Using the Renewable Energy Policy Project's own numbers, as many as 4,500 manufacturing jobs may have been created overseas."

A strong, broad Buy American clause in the stimulus bill could have prevented the off-shoring of U.S. tax dollars intended to create jobs for unemployed Americans. My union, the United Steelworkers, and the AFL-CIO pushed hard for that language, and polls showed 86 percent of Americans supported it. Republicans and lobbyists for multi-national corporations that wanted to spend U.S. tax money overseas opposed Buy American provisions.

Congress adopted weak, limited Buy American language. Now D.C. exports stimulus dollars to create jobs in foreign countries.

Original URL

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/leo-w-gerard/hell-if-dc-didnt-offshore_b_363647.html

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/leo-w-gerard/hell-if-dc-didnt-offshore_b_363647.html