Suppose you opened a restaurant in Chattanooga that served small portions at high prices. Then suppose that — to no one’s big surprise — customers stayed away in droves, and the restaurant began to fail.
What do you think the reaction might be if you approached the City Council and insisted that it provide you taxpayer subsidies to keep you in business even though few people patronized your restaurant? We’re guessing the council would feel sorry for you — but would not rush to provide tax dollars to prop up your unwise venture.
But that sort of common sense seems rare in Congress. Executives in the solar power industry recently urged a congressional committee to continue various subsidies, loan guarantees and other such favors that they receive at taxpayers’ expense. They also said Congress should force energy utilities to produce certain percentages of their power with solar panels, windmills and the like, to artificially create more demand for the industry’s goods and services.
The executives candidly acknowledged that their industry would have trouble making it if it were not propped up by taxpayers. “We need stable federal policy to support and ensure the success of the solar industry in the future,” one official told a Senate committee.
But that is the best reason why the solar power industry should not receive such “support.” It is not Washington’s job to guarantee the success of any private industry, but to let the free market pick winners and losers based on who provides the best goods and services at the best prices. If an industry’s “success” depends on backing from taxpayers who are not willing to purchase its products, it’s really not “success” at all, but only an illusion.