We are happy for anyone to earn a paycheck, especially in these troubled economic times. And we certainly do not begrudge a Calhoun, Ga., farm’s recent decision to install hundreds of solar panels that will let it make some money by selling the excess power that the panels produce.
What is objectionable is that the federal government picked up 65 percent of the $560,000 tab for installing the solar panels at the farm. Thirty-five percent of the funding came from the so-called “stimulus,” and an additional 30 percent came from a separate federal grant.
That left the farm paying only about a third of the bill. The owner of the farm acknowledged, “I couldn’t have done it without the grants.”
But that is precisely the point. He could not have done it because, even with the potential to sell off the excess power, the solar panels simply are not a cost-effective way to produce energy.
Yet taxpayers are being forced to prop up this “alternative energy” plan even though it would not make it on its own in the free market.
The fault does not really lie with the Calhoun farm nor with any other business or individual who accepts such grants. There will always be takers of “free” government money.
The fault lies with our Congress, which has unconstitutionally created “stimulus” programs and layers upon layers of subsidies that promote unfeasible projects while further burdening taxpayers and adding tremendously to our horrible national debt.
Enterprises of whatever sort – alternative energy or anything else – ought to succeed or fail on the basis of their own merits in the free market, not on the basis of government subsidies.