Bond James Bond wrote: ...
On another side note, California was governed by a Republican, Schwarzenegger, from Nov 2003 to Jan 2011. Does he get no blame for California's 11% unemployment or does it get hung around California's current governor, Jerry Brown, the same way President Bush Jr.'s economy was hung around the neck of Obama like an anchor?
Former Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger of California fully supported President Barack Obama's Stimulus Package for his State.
Schwarzenegger calls stimulus plan 'terrific': (February 22nd, 2009): http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/20 ... -terrific/ Schwarzenegger To GOP Governors: Give Me Your Unwanted Stimulus Money: (3/25/09): http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/02/2 ... 68918.html White House turns to data and Schwarzenegger to defend stimulus: (10/30/09): http://thehill.com/homenews/administrat ... d-stimulus Schwarzenegger highlights benefits of 1-year-old federal stimulus package: (Feb. 17, 2010): http://www.scpr.org/news/2010/02/17/120 ... ear-old-f/ California received more money from the federal stimulus package than any other state. On its first anniversary today, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger emphasized the benefits of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.
Schwarzenegger said California will benefit from $80 billion in federal stimulus money.
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Schwarzenegger Backs Obama on Health Care, Stimulus: (Feb 23, 2010): http://www.newser.com/story/81569/schwa ... mulus.html When the Stimulus Package was signed by President Barack Obama back in February of 2009, California's unemployment rate was at 10.5%. Now California's unemployment rate is at 11.1%.
The Following is From Yahoo News:
Report: Los Angeles spent $70 million in stimulus funds to create 7.76 jobs
By John Cook | The Upshot – Fri, Sep 17, 2010
A new piece of evidence has emerged in the debate over the effectiveness of President Obama's 2009 stimulus package, and it's not good for Democrats. According to two newly released audits performed by the Los Angeles controller, L.A. spent enormous portions of the $594 million in stimulus funds it received on projects that created or saved just a handful of jobs. All told, the audits — available here and here [pdf] — examined $111 million in stimulus spending by the city's Department of Transportation and Department of Public Works, and found that the money went to projects that created or retained just 54 jobs. That works out to roughly $2 million per job.
The $71 million that went to the Department of Public Works, which funded 15 road-surfacing and similar projects, was projected to save or create 238 jobs. But according to the audit, the money created just 7.76 jobs — or slightly more than $10 million per new job — and saved 37.7 (the fractions are a result of calculating the number of jobs by hours worked). The Department of Transportation's $40 million created or retained just nine jobs, the audit found.
In a press release accompanying the audits [pdf], L.A. Controller Wendy Greuel said the job numbers were underwhelming. "I'm disappointed that we've only created or retained 55 jobs after receiving $111 million in [stimulus] funds," Greuel said. "With our local unemployment rate over 12 percent, we need to do a better job cutting the red tape and putting Angelenos back to work."
The audit didn't find any misspent funds or waste. But the breakdown of how some of the money was spent seems to indicate efficiency was not exactly the order of the day for project managers. The Department of Transportation, for instance, spent $9 million to install new LED lightbulbs in traffic lights at 1,800 intersections. Less the $228,000 in labor costs associated with the project, that's nearly $5,000 per location to change lightbulbs. Another project spent $4 million to install 65 new left-turn arrows, averaging more than $61,500 per arrow.
Link: http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/upshot/repo ... funds.html Solyndra, a company based within California, was supposed to create several thousands of ‘Green Jobs' within California.
However, After having received over a half-billion dollars in stimulus money, Solyndra ended up going bankrupt.
The Following is From Bloomberg Businessweek:
Solyndra files for bankruptcy, looks for buyer
NEW YORK
A California solar panel manufacturer that received more than a half-billion dollars in government loan guarantees filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy Tuesday and plans to seek a buyer for the company.
Solyndra LLC, based in Fremont, Calif., becomes the latest in a series of failures in the U.S. solar business, which has been beset by oversupply and competition from abroad.
The company, which makes unique solar tubes that can soak up sunlight from many different angles, has struggled recently to raise capital as the economy soured. Investors turned away from solar companies as profit margins were squeezed by declining prices for solar wafers and rising supplies. Experts also expressed doubt about the future of government incentive programs.
Solyndra owes $783.8 million, including loans of $527.8 million to the federal government, according to documents filed with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Delaware.
Solyndra said in its filing that it would look for a suitor to buy the entire company out of bankruptcy, and if it couldn't, it would liquidate its assets piecemeal to pay creditors.
The company announced last week that it would seek bankruptcy protection and lay off 1,100 workers, virtually its entire workforce. Lawmakers used the announcement to criticize President Barack Obama's support for green technologies.
Solyndra, once considered a rising star in the solar industry, received $535 million in loan guarantees and $1 billion in private investment. Obama visited the company last year, as did other officials, including former California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Energy Secretary Steven Chu.
Two other prominent solar companies, Evergreen Solar Inc. and Spectrawatt Inc., both sought bankruptcy protection in August. Spectrawatt's CEO said the company could not compete with solar manufacturers in China, which receive "considerable government and financial support."
Former Solyndra employees filed a class-action lawsuit against the company in response to the bankruptcy, saying that Solyndra failed to properly notify them. They're seeking extra wages and benefits, according to a separate complaint filed with the bankruptcy court.
Link: http://www.businessweek.com/ap/financia ... J89JG0.htm The Following is from the Los Angeles Times:
Obama advisors raised warning flags before Solyndra bankruptcy
Treasury chief Timothy F. Geithner and others were worried that the selection process for federal loan guarantees fell short and raised the risk that funds could be going to the wrong firms.
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By Tom Hamburger, Kim Geiger and Matea Gold,
Washington Bureau
September 26, 2011, 6:35 p.m.
Reporting from Washington— Long before the politically connected California solar firm Solyndra went bankrupt, President Obama was warned by his top economic advisors about the financial and political risks of the Energy Department loan guarantee program that boosted the company's rapid ascent.
At a White House meeting in late October, Lawrence H. Summers, then director of the National Economic Council, and Timothy F. Geithner, the Treasury secretary, expressed concerns that the selection process for federal loan guarantees wasn't rigorous enough and raised the risk that funds could be going to the wrong companies, including ones that didn't need the help.
Energy Secretary Steven Chu, also at the meeting, had a different view. Under pressure from Congress to speed up the loans, he wanted less scrutiny from the Treasury Department and the Office of Management and Budget, or OMB.
The divisions foreshadowed a question that has emerged since Solyndra's bankruptcy: Was the program's vetting process thorough enough? The disagreements also spotlighted an issue that has confronted Obama since he took office: What is the appropriate role of the government in stimulating the private marketplace?
Skeptics, noting that taxpayers could now be on the hook for $527 million the federal government loaned Solyndra, said the administration would have been better off making greater use of market incentives, not individual company loan guarantees.
"It was completely predictable that there would be a colossal failure among the bets," said one person familiar with the internal debate.
Defending the program as an overall success, administration officials say that the $17 billion in loan guarantees now on track to go to 30 companies will help double renewable energy generation in Obama's first term.
The program that funded Solyndra is set to expire at the end of the month, and the White House is pushing to provide more green-energy loan guarantees through other initiatives and keep the U.S. competitive globally. The Chinese government, the Energy Department says, last year committed $30 billion to solar-panel manufacturers.
Almost immediately after the 2008 election, Obama advisors began debating how to create jobs while reducing the nation's reliance on fossil fuels. Some advisors pushed to expand a George W. Bush administration loan-guarantee initiative to help green-energy companies launch commercially. Others were philosophically opposed to providing help to individual companies and warned against betting taxpayer money on inherently risky ventures.
Nevertheless, the administration went forward with the loan guarantee program as part of the 2009 stimulus law. High-level disagreements on the program continued.
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Link: http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld ... 8311.story The Democratic Party has controlled both the State Assembly and the State Senate in California since 1996.
"And I've said it before, you want to know what Joseph Smith looked like in Nauvoo, just look at Trump." - Fence Sitter
