Obama Donor: Stimulus Was Like a Hooker in Prison

After announcing earlier this year that the company would lay off 200 of its 300 employees, solar manufacturer Amonix Inc. closed its operation in North Las Vegas leaving taxpayers in the red by $20 million.

Editor's note: We've updated this piece with research from the RNC below, entitiled: "The Big Payback: Where It All Began," which details the massive payoffs directed to Obama supporters using taxpayer dollars in the guise of "stimulus."

“Just seven months after California-based solar power company Amonix Inc. opened its largest manufacturing plant, in North Las Vegas,” reports the Las Vegas Sun, a liberal paper, last January, “the company’s contractor has laid off nearly two-thirds of its workforce. Flextronics Industrial, the Singapore solar panel manufacturer that partnered with Amonix to staff the new $18 million, 214,000-square-foot plant, laid off about 200 of its 300-plus employees Tuesday.”

Now only 14 months after opening the facility, and seven months after massive layoffs, it has closed due to manufacturing over-capacity in the solar industry, along with quality control issues.

"I don't think they had a lot of training," said Rene Kenerly, a former material and supply manager at Amonix, according to the Las Vegas Review Journal. "There were a lot of quality issues. A lot of stuff was coming back because it had some functionality issues."

Sounds like a picture perfect Obama program: Very expensive with "functionality issues."

The man behind the company, Steve Westly, has received over $500 million in taxpayer-funded grants, loans and cash for a variety of companies- mostly in the in the green space after raising $86,000 for Obama as a bundler in 2008, according to the campaign cash website opensecrets.org.

So far this election cycle, Westly has donated $101,000 to various Democrat candidates and groups according to data compiled by opensecrets, including $60,000 to DNC Service Corp, also known by the less creepy name of the Democrat National Committee.

Earlier this week, I detailed plans by another Obama bundler, Steven Gluckstern, to help municipalities seize mortgage loans under eminent domain laws- that is, abuse eminent domain laws- in order to generate fees for his company, Mortgage Resolution Partners.

Westly’s list of interests backed by the Obama administration is much, much longer than the Gluckstern scheme however.

“We believe that with the Obama administration, and other governments … committing hundreds of billions of dollars to clean tech, there has never been a better time to launch clean tech companies,” says his company website. “The Westly Group is uniquely positioned to take advantage of this surge of interest and growth.”

One of President Barack Obama’s most prolific fundraisers, Westly was among guests at January’s state dinner for the president of China. A month later, he dined with Obama again at an exclusive San Francisco Bay area gathering for prominent high tech CEOs, including the leaders of Facebook, Google and Apple.

In addition to the $20 million in loans and tax credits for the failed Amonix plant, Westly also is involved in other companies that have benefited from Obama-directed taxpayer help: Tesla Motors, CalStar Products, Solexel, Recycle Bank, EdenIQ and Amyris Biotechnologies.

Now I understand why the Democrats are so worried about Mitt’s tax returns: Mitt’s showing income not losses.

Here’s my proposal: If it’s constitutional to tax people who don’t have healthcare, isn’t it constitutional to levy a tax on investors who benefit from federal green energy boondoggles?

If you are going to go after millionaires and billionaires, here’s a set of folks who are just crying for it.

Because if you want to know what happened to the all the stimulus jobs that were supposed to be created, now you know: They were sacrificed to stimulate the bundlers.

From RNC Research:

The Big Payback: Where It All Began

Obama Relives His High Profile Stimulus Rally, A Bill Defined By Cronies Given Payoffs And Middle Class Layoffs

Today, President Obama Will Appear At The Harborside Event Center In Fort Myers. FL. "President Barack Obama will talk about the economy when he returns to a downtown Fort Myers civic center Friday, more than three years after he first visited. Campaign officials said Tuesday night that Obama will hold a public rally Friday morning at Harborside Event Center in downtown Fort Myers." (Jenna Buzzacco-Foerster, "Tickets Available Wednesday For Obama Visit To Fort Myers On Friday," Naples Daily News, 7/17/12)

Obama Appeared At The Harborside Event Center In February 2009 To "Rally Support For His $800 Billion-Plus Stimulus Package." "That's the same place the president held a town hall meeting in 2009 to rally support for his $800 billion-plus stimulus package." (Jenna Buzzacco-Foerster, "Tickets Available Wednesday For Obama Visit To Fort Myers On Friday," Naples Daily News, 7/17/12)

Obama Said Stimulus Would Create New Jobs In Renewable Energy, "Jobs Building Wind Turbines And Solar Panels And Fuel-Efficient Cars." OBAMA: "And they won't be make-work jobs. They'll be jobs that lay the groundwork for a lasting economic boom, jobs that put people to work today preparing America for tomorrow: Jobs building wind turbines and solar panels and fuel-efficient cars -- (cheers, applause) -- doubling our investment in clean energy, helping end our dependence on foreign oil. (Cheers, applause.)." (President Barack Obama, Remarks At A Town Hall Event, Fort Myers, FL, 2/10/09)

A Month Later At A Green Energy Venture Capital Conference, Obama Donor Paul Holland Made An Off Color Joke When Asked " How Can We All Make Some Money Off" The Stimulus

"In A Video Appearance From 2009, Venture Capitalist Paul Holland - Who Had Given The Maximum Legal Contribution To Obama, And Whose Companies Received Over 6 Million In Government Dollars - Described His Feelings When Heard About The Billions Up For Grabs." (Michael Hastings, "Obama Official Was Like 'A Hooker Dropped Into A Prison Exercise Yard,'" BuzzFeed, 7/17/12)

Question: "One of the things, and Paul I'm going to start with you because you just go off a plane from Washington, D.C. and there are a lot of entrepreneurs out there and you guys in particular who are specifically looking at the stimulus package or packages I should say. And wondering if there is an opportunity there, for your companies, for new companies what is the latest from DC, what were you doing there, and how can we all make some money off of that?"

Foundation Capital's Paul Holland: "Yeah, that's big question. So I guess I would just peel it back to a couple of weeks before I was at the Wall Street Journal's Economics Conference and Matt Rogers who probably a number of you know came in and was doing a talk and this is going to be a little off collar so I don't want to get in trouble for this. He came in to do his talk and opened his talk with, 'I'm Matt Rogers I am the Special Assistant to the Secretary of Energy and I have $134 billion that I have to disperse between now and the end of December.' So upon hearing that I sent an email to my partners that said Matt Rogers is about to get treated like a hooker dropped into a prison exercise yard . And I had the lack of judgment to go up and share that with him and the other people who were all standing around him at the end of the talk and uh fortunately for me they all laughed and thought it was funny."

OBAMA USED THE STIMULUS TO SHOWER BILLIONS IN TAXPAYER FUNDS FOR GREEN ENERGY COMPANIES TIED TO HIS POLITICAL SUPPORTERS

Obama Bundlers Worked In His Department Of Energy "As It Showered Billions In Taxpayer-Backed Stimulus Money On Alternative Energy Firms." "Several of Barack Obama's top campaign supporters went from soliciting political contributions to working from within the Energy Department as it showered billions in taxpayer-backed stimulus money on alternative energy firms, iWatch News and ABC News have learned." (Ronnie Green and Matthew Mosk, "Bundlers On The Inside," iWatch , 9/29/11)

Amonix is another company declaring bankruptcy after not being able to make it in the solar energy market. This is another company that was heavily subsidized by the federal government with 6 million dollars in tax credits and a 15 million dolllar grant from the US Department of Energy. The company has only been open for 14 months.

This is one of a long line of clean energy companies that have recently failed or faced difficulty

* Solar Trust of America - Opened in 2009 and went bankrupt in April of 2012. Solar Trust received a 2.1 billion dollar loan guarantee from the Dept of Energy but fortunately turned it down.

* Bright Source - Opened in 2008 and is still in business thanks to a last minute 1.6 billion dollar loan in March of 2011 that staved off financial failure. Interestingly enough, the loan is now part of an ethics probe. Apparently, Bright Source hired Vice President Joe Biden’s former chief of staff to lobby the administration for the loan.

* Solyndra - Founded in 2005 and bankrupt in August of 2011. Solyndra was considered for a US Dept of Energy Loan by the Bush Administration, but it was eventually unanimously declined. In March 2009, the US Dept of Energy approved a 527 million loan even though a budget analys stated that “This deal is not ready for prime time.” Solyndra received a 25 million dollar tax break from California. To help sales, in 2010, the IRS chipped in and gave an additional 30% tax credit for customers who installed 10,000 dollars worth of Solyndra panels.

* Azure Dynamics - In another case of good fortune, the DOE did not give a grant or loan to Azure Dynamics before it declared bankruptcy in the spring of 2012. The state of Michigan did give a 1.7 million dollar tax credit in 2009. Azure did receive a four year 112 million dollar contract from the Government Service Agency which allowed the military and government agencies to order the Transit Connect EV.

Related to this, Johnson Controls received a 299 millon dollar grant from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act and 168.5 millions dollars in incentives from the state of Michigan to build a plant in Holland, MI. This plant was supposed to work in conjunction with Azure Dynamics to build electric vehicles. The bankruptcy unfortunately has caused a slow down in production at the plant and caused Johnson Controls to lose money that it invested in Azure Dynamics.

* Beacon Power - Beacon was founded in 1997 and went bankrupt in October of 2011. In 2009, Beacon received a 43 million dollar loan guarantee from the DOE. Beacon also received an additional 29 million dollars in grants from Pennsylvania and the US. As a side note, in Feb of 2012, Rockland Capital, a private equity group, bought most of the companies’ assets. As another aside, partner Joseph Lambeth of Rockland gave 20,000 to the DNC and Barack Obama in 2011.

* Abound Solar - Abound Solar received a 400 million dollar loan from the DOE in 2010. In declared bankruptcy in June of 2012. Forutnately for tax payers, it is reported that only 40 to 60 million dollars of the loan will be lost after the sale of assets. In 2010, President Obama praised the company in one of his speeches: “The second company is Abound Solar Manufacturing, which will manufacture advanced solar panels at two new plants, creating more than 2,000 construction jobs and 1,500 permanent jobs.” Pat Stryker, one of the wealthiest 400 people in America, was a major backer of the plant and a bundler for President Obama.

* Evergreen Solar - Founded in 1994, it went bankrupt in August of 2011. Evergreen received 58 million dollars in financial aid from the state of Massachusetts. After the bankruptcy, Evergreen was sued by the DOE in order to prevent it from selling patents to firms not based in the US. It is argued that these patents were developed between 2002 and 2005 using a 3 million dollar federal grant.

* Ener1 - Ener1 received a 118.5 million dollar grant from the DOE in 2010. The company declared bankruptcy in March of 2012. In January of 2011, Vice President Biden visited Ener1 in order to proclaim how successful it was.

* Uni-Solar - Uni-Solar received a 13.275 million dollar federal tax credit in January of 2010. Then, in June of 2012, Uni-Solar declared bankruptcy. In May of 2006, The Greenville City Council approved 45 millions dollars worth of incentives for Uni-Solar. These included tax breaks, grants, and employee training.

* Energy Conversion Devices - Another Michigan company declared bankruptcy in February of 2012. This company was a subsidiary of Uni-Solar. In the Spring of 2009, it received a 13.3 million dollar tax credit from the stimulus program and it was predicted that the company would create 600 new jobs. In order to save money, in August of 2010, it shipped 140 jobs from its Michigan factory to Mexico.

* A123 Systems - In August of 2009, A123 received 249 million dollar grant from the DOE. Part of the grant was used to refurbish plants in Livonia and Romulus MI. In November of 2011, 125 workers were laid off from these plants after A123 produced faulty batteries for another DOE grant recipient Fisker Automotive. The faulty batteries were quite the embarrassment since they prevented Consumer Reports from testing a Fisker automobile. In the modern vernacular, this is an epic fail. As of now, there is a 55 million dollar recall effort out by A123 to reclaim and repair faulty batteries. The DOE grant was supposed to be completely used by the end of 2012, but much of it is left. The DOE has extended the period to the end of 2014. In 2011, A123 lost 257 million dollars in 2011, 152.6 million in 2010, and 85 million in 2009. At the start of 2010, A123’s stock price was over 20 per share. Now it is under 90 cents. It is currently being sued by a NY based law firm over inadequacies in disclosure related to the defective batteries.

Between 2008 up until now, executives from the company donated more than 22000 dollars to Barack Obama, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, Senator John Kerry, and Representative Ed Markey while sending 1000 dollars to Scott Brown.

* Ecotality - In August of 2009, Ecotality received a 99.8 million dollar grant from the DOE. In June of 2010, it received another 15 million dollar grant from the DOE. Since June of 2010, Ecotatlity has been investigated by the SEC for stock issues and sued the state of California for working with NRG in building a competing network of charging stations. Ecotatlity turned it first ever profit in the first quarter of 2012, making 1.2 million dollars. The stock was valued at 34.80 in August of 2007. In July of 2012, it is valued at .47 per share.

* SunPower - The already financially troubled SunPower (over 800 million in debt) received a 1.2 billion dollar loan guarantee from the DOE in the spring of 2011. Shortly thereafter, it sold a 60% stake of itself to French Energy company Total, who then gave the company a 1 billion dollar credit line. The 1.2 billion dollar loan was to be used to create a solar power ranch. This was actually sold to NRG. The ranch is projected to create 15 full time jobs. Representative George Miller has stated that SunPower is a success after touring one of its plants. Mr Miller’s son works for the lobbying firm employed by SunPower. Interestingly enough, after the Solyendra scandal broke, someone at the DOE went back and scrubbed the website of references to SunPower.

The Obama Administration has stated over and over that each of these companies received funding based on merit. In the book “Throw Them All Out”, the author Peter Schweizer shows that 71% of the DOE grants and loans went to bundlers for Obama’s Presidential campaign, members of Obama’s National Finance Committee, or large donors to the Democratic Party. The 71% raised 457,834 dollars for Obama and the Democratic Party. The 71% received 11.35 billion dollars in DOE handouts.

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