No, Bush Was Not Responsible For Solyndra

No, Bush Was Not Responsible For Solyndra
Debunking a dopey liberal talking point.
by John Hayward 09/15/2011

Let’s nip this one right in the bud, shall we?

Having tried to blame all his other failures on George Bush, President Obama took a stab at blaming his predecessor for Solyndra, too. As reported by ABC News:

After spending months touting the Obama administration's decision to loan $535 million to the California solar energy upstart Solyndra, top officials took a new tack Wednesday while testifying before Congress about the company's abrupt shut-down and bankruptcy: the loan, they said, was actually the Bush administration's idea. The Energy Department's top lending officer told Congress that the Solyndra loan application was not only filed during President Bush's term, but it surged towards completion before Obama took office in January 2009.

"By the time the Obama administration took office in late January 2009, the loan programs' staff had already established a goal of, and timeline for, issuing the company a conditional loan guarantee commitment in March 2009," said Jonathan Silver, who heads the Energy loan program.

It’s true that the Solyndra loan application was filed during the Bush years, and kicked around with varying levels of enthusiasm. Evidently proceeding on the assumption that their remaining supporters are idiots, the Obama people just decided to leave out the part of the story where the Bush team voted against the Solyndra loan, for precisely the reasons Obama tried to cover up when he was pushing it through.

The results of the Congressional probe shared Tuesday with ABC News show that less than two weeks before President Bush left office, on January 9, 2009, the Energy Department's credit committee made a unanimous decision not to offer a loan commitment to Solyndra.

Even after Obama took office on Jan. 20, 2009, analysts in the Energy Department and in the Office of Management and Budget were repeatedly questioning the wisdom of the loan. In one exchange, an Energy official wrote of "a major outstanding issue" -- namely, that Solyndra's numbers showed it would run out of cash in September 2011.

There was also concern about the high-risk nature of the project. Internally, the Office of Management and Budget wrote that "the risk rating for the project sponsor [Solyndra] … seems high." Outside analysts had warned for months that the company might not be a sound investment.

So, yes, the Bush Administration considered Solyndra’s loan application. Then they rejected it, based on input that matches, almost word for word, the desperate warnings Barack Obama and his people completely ignored in 2009.

There were various reports introduced in Solyndra’s favor, including decent credit ratings from some of the agencies that haven’t joined Standard & Poor’s in downgrading America yet. Nothing resembling the kind of political influence Obama deployed on Solyndra’s behalf was brought to bear during the Bush Administration, so they decided to pass on the loan. If you want to castigate them for taking so long to realize Solyndra was a big solar-powered turkey, be my guest.

End of stupid liberal talking point.
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To read another article by John Hayward, click here.