09.14.11
The new Whitewater
The GOP party has another tool for thoroughly torturing the Obama administration: Solyndra’s bankruptcy.
In addition to the philosophical differences with encouraging government funding for private companies, critics say the Department of Energy gave Solyndra favorable treatment in the loan approval process due to its tight relationship with administration officials.
They point out that one of the company’s main financial backers, billionaire George Kaiser, is also a big Democratic campaign donor.
Now the company’s bankruptcy has become a case study on an issue likely to gain increasing attention: Should the government be investing taxpayer dollars in promising — but risky — startup companies?
All of the mainstream media will play dumb. Propping up crappy firms with taxpayer dough! Heresy!
Lots of people will stupidly act like it’s rare, or should be.
They will conveniently ignore that one of the primary functions of the Department of Homeland Security, over the past decade, was to do the same thing. And for most of the time we were under GOP rule.
The taxpayer propped up hundreds, maybe thousands, of small businesses promising technology to fight the war on terror. Most of it either totally flopped or has never paid off in any big way.
For example, the tale of the notorious “puffer machine” from Smiths:
WASHINGTON — A $36 million anti-terrorism program designed to detect bombs on airline passengers by shooting air blasts to dislodge explosive particles is being scuttled because the machines proved unreliable at airports.
The “puffer” machines — glass portals that passengers enter for checkpoint screening — are being removed after the Transportation Security Administration spent $6.2 million on maintenance since 2005. Removing them will cost nearly $1 million, TSA spokeswoman Sterling Payne said.
Problems emerged after the TSA bought 207 puffers for $30 million starting in 2004. Ninety-four were installed in 37 airports. The other 113 machines stayed in storage.
Dirt and humidity in airports led to frequent breakdowns, Payne said. The TSA has removed 60 puffers and will pull the rest but has no deadline. The puffers, costing $160,000 each, attempted to identify bomb residue on clothing. They were used as added screening on passengers who had gone through metal detectors.
Some of the machines had trouble detecting bombs, said Hasbrouck Miller, a vice president of puffer manufacturer Smiths Detection. “It was a torturous four years,” Miller said, describing repair efforts …
One can make the argument the only reason the company hasn’t gone out of business is because of continuous taxpayer funding courtesy of multiple federal agencies.
Throughout the United States this has been the way of things. The anthrax vaccine was regularly tied to crony capitalism.
And dead Jack Murtha’s career was virtually defined by it during the big years of the war on terror. When he died, the University of Pittsburgh’s Center for Biosecurity lost its government fixer and its effort to get a big bioterror defense vaccine production center slowly collapsed.
Scandal! Impeach now!
I loved the puffer machine as imagery for stupid national failure so much, I put it in a song. And I’ll never miss an opportunity to mention it.
Good news, lads! Good news! Puffer machine at 1:21.