The Green New Deal is Dying

Decades ago liberal political and cultural leaders found a topic that would frighten weak-minded people into doing things that are clearly illogical and against their best interests. “Global Warming” became the cause celebre of leftists worldwide, and has been used – often in conjunction with other concocted concerns – to bully people into accepting Marxist control over their lives.

For years we have been warned that the polar ice caps would disappear, the oceans would rise swamping coastal cities, the rain forests of South America would disappear, countless animals would be extinct, the air we breathe would be destroyed all because of fossil fuels or carbon dioxide or cow farts or something . . . it has been utter doom and gloom for all of my life, and I’m no spring chicken.

The goal of the Marxists is to shut down all energy sources that existed before they decided global warming was a thing. Petroleum has got to go, too “dirty”. Hydroelectric? Fish don’t like it. Nuclear power? The Russians melted down a nuke plant once. Coal makes people’s faces dirty. And there must be something wrong with natural gas, there is so much of it and Trump likes it.

Despite technological advances and resource discoveries that turn all of the Marxists’ fears upside down, they have persisted in trying to convert the world to new energy sources, whether they work or not, for the purpose of gaining control over our personal behavior.

Well, the new energy sources don’t work. And the world has begun to figure this out.

At the same time we are discovering that “renewable” electric energy sources are far less efficient and abundant than conventional power, we are converting our energy use to electric only.

Ford Motor Company did more to advance the standard of living for average citizens than perhaps anyone else in history by making gas-powered vehicles affordable for the masses. Then they were pushed by Marxists in government and other institutions to shift production away from internal combustion and toward battery-powered EVs. Now the car companies have announced that they are, again, cutting back on EV (electric vehicle) production, due to lack of demand.

It seems that consumers have figured out that even with huge taxpayer subsidies to both the buyers and the sellers of EVs, battery-powered vehicles are still no bargain. The range of an EV is about 300 miles, more or less, on a battery charge, and electricity is not free or readily available when all the power plants have been replaced by inefficient wind and solar and neighborhood grids can’t support the additional loads required to charge many cars overnight. The batteries must be replaced when worn out (eight to twelve years), at a cost of up to $15,000 plus installation. So the value of a used EV depletes quickly. The old batteries are a landfill disposal nightmare. The batteries require rare earth minerals to produce. Batteries don’t work well in extreme heat or cold. EVs weigh significantly more than gas-powered cars, so they are tough on tires and roads. Car battery fires are daunting for firemen, and EVs are proving much less reliable than gas-powered cars. Let’s not forget the sticker price for EVs is significantly higher than gas burners, and manufacturers are still losing a ton of money.

Any time the government has to bribe producers to make something, and/or consumers to buy something, you can bet it will end up being a bad deal for everybody, except those who take illicit advantage of somebody else’s forced investment. Free market supply and demand is perfect – producers are encouraged to make products that buyers want and can afford.

Last year the South Carolina legislature gave $1.3 billion in taxpayer-funded incentives and cash to Volkswagen/Scout to build a new EV manufacturing plant in the Palmetto State. The spending bill was pushed through rapidly and with little or no transparency and apparently not a lot of critical thought. One year later, car companies are cutting way back on production and plans for battery plants are being scrapped. The failure of South Carolina’s investment in the EV industry is predictable and it will be held against elected officials who voted for it.

Yes, people have wised up and the Green New Deal is now old news. It has been replaced by the Next New Pandemic.

Tom Balek – Rockin’ On the Right Side

Well you could search the whole world over
And never find another like it
It's got a built in lifetime guarantee
It's a one time only offer
And darling once you've tried it
You're gonna fall in love with it you'll see

Have I Got A Deal For You - Reba McEntire

The Economy is Fine – Inflation is Only 3%!

Yeah, right.

The CEO of McDonald’s acknowledged a drop in sales due to increased menu prices. Customers have noticed and criticized the price hikes, especially the nearly $18 Big Mac combo. The company aims to focus on affordability in response.

Chris Kempczinski discussed this strategy on an earnings call, highlighting a shift towards making their offerings more affordable in 2024. Despite a 3.4% growth in global same-store sales, it fell short of the expected 4.7%. Rising inflation has particularly affected low-income customers, leading to a decrease in patronage.

Daily Patriot Report – 2/7/24

Since 2020, home prices are up 45%. Car insurance has increased by 36%. 

Some other mind-numbing stats from the Heritage Foundation:

Unless you are one of the elite, jet-set, Davos/WEF “beautiful people”, you know what’s going on. The middle class will soon be completely hollowed out as our federal government borrows trillions of dollars from our grandchildren, pouring it on their friends and oligarchs around the world, while inviting millions of third-world sparrows to our once-prosperous eagle’s nest.

We all know that there are “lies, damn lies, and statistics”. Our current administration is immune to embarrassment when it comes to issuing statistical propaganda. And their partners in crime, big tech and big media, are quick to cover up any bad news before it reaches the “smelly Wal-Mart people” they so detest.

I went to college before they were liberal indoctrination camps. My business and accounting mentor, a very wise and accomplished semi-retired CFO from Boston, taught me a succinct and powerful lesson he called “the test of reasonableness”: whenever you are given a number that someone is using to try to influence you, question it in your mind and apply some simple math. If the rough-cut calculation doesn’t make immediate sense, you are being conned! 

Hey Biden Administration! Credit card debt is through the roof. Nobody can afford to buy a new home. Working-class shoppers pick up an item, see the price, and sadly put it back on the shelf. Your inflation numbers do not pass the test of reasonableness.

Tom Balek – Rockin’ On the Right Side

ENJOY SOME FINE ROCKIN’ BLUES BY JONNY LANG –

Lie to me
It doesn’t matter any more
It could never be
The way it was before


LIE TO ME – Jonny Lang

Trump’s “To Do” List

1. Resign from the United Nations and NATO.

2. Eliminate the FBI, Homeland Security, Dept. of Education, ATF, IRS, CIA, Dept. of Commerce, BLM, Dept. of Agriculture, HUD, and any other programs and departments that have become inefficient, unmanageable, corrupt, or obsolete. Merge their necessary functions into remaining departments and a reformed, streamlined Dept. of Defense. Task the Dept. of Defense with securing all borders and ports.

3. Establish a new federal Department of Technology and Efficiency (DOTE), headquartered in the former UN building, funded with recovered spending from the UN, NATO, and the eliminated departments and programs. The DOTE would research, develop, and implement new methods, procedures, devices and facilities with and for all agencies of the federal government.  It would be directed by a board of carefully selected industry and government leaders under the authority and oversight of Congress via a workforce of world-class tech experts in engineering, defense and security, management, artificial intelligence, energy, and transportation. Priorities would include eliminating 50% of the federal workforce with efficient technology; restoring energy independence, and building modern infrastructure including a national satellite system for communication and security.

4. Push all federal functions not enumerated in the Constitution back down to state and local control, including health, education, agriculture, welfare, law enforcement, etc. Eliminate the federal taxes that were allocated to these functions and let states fund their own systems.

5. Challenge Congress to establish and maintain a balanced budget at the new, significantly reduced spending levels.

6. Restore integrity to our courts and system of justice. Enforce laws without discrimination with an intense scrutiny for corruption and fraud by government officials and employees.

Our federal government is so huge, with a budget beyond human comprehension, that corruption and inefficiency is inevitable. We have to make government smaller and eliminate politics as a source of personal wealth. That will take new thinking and big change for Trump and a rehabilitated Congress.

Tom Balek – Rockin’ on the Right Side

Someday, somehow
Something has to change

Am I ready for times such as these?
Emphatically no
Though I did see it coming
A long time ago

SOMETHING HAS TO CHANGE – Rodney Crowell

Uncle Sam is on Life Support

Once he was the strongest man in the world, respected and relied upon by the hungry and oppressed. Now he is an old man, weak and frail, with medical problems too numerous and serious to list.

In recent years, Uncle Sam’s immune system has broken down to the point of total failure. It is now unable to prevent alien organisms from invading his body at will, to the extent that Sam’s appearance has even changed. He no longer resembles the man he once was.

Once the strongest man in the world, Uncle Sam is now a sissy, preferring girl’s clothing and makeup to the fit athleticism and bold, masculine confidence of his youth. He is now the favorite target of bullies, who no longer hesitate to take his lunch money.

Most distressing of all, poor old Uncle Sam suffers dementia. He thinks anyone can choose and change their genders, and that deviant sex, even for kids, is a good thing. He believes he can spend unlimited amounts of money without ever running out. He even thinks that national elections will be perfectly administered even if there are no rules. His brain is so addled that it seems nothing is too preposterous for him to believe.

Not so long ago Uncle Sam was clear-eyed, honest, devout and dedicated to the protection of his family. How much longer can he withstand the ravages of the diseases his current caregivers have foisted upon him?

I’m afraid the only thing that will save Uncle Sam is a new doctor.

Tom Balek, Rockin’ On the Right Side

‘Cause I have wandered through this world
And as each moment has unfurled
I’ve been waiting to awaken from these dreams

People go just where they will
I never noticed them until I got this feeling
That it’s later than it seems

Doctor, my eyes
Tell me what you see
I hear their cries
Just say if it’s too late for me

DOCTOR MY EYES – Jackson Browne

Those Were The Days

Archie Bunker’s eyes would bug out. Fred Sanford would have another fake heart attack, yelling “it’s the big one ‘Lizabeth! I’m coming home!” Even Meathead would be totally flummoxed at the state of our nation and culture today.

For those of you too young to get the references, All In The Family and Sanford and Son were the two most popular sitcoms on American television in the 1970s. Archie Bunker, a bigoted but big-hearted working class white guy, complained constantly about the deterioration of life in America – especially the younger generation. His live-in son-in-law, Meathead, was a hippy liberal Democrat who drove Archie crazy, and vice-versa.

Sanford and Son was the flipside of All In the Family. Fred Sanford was an equally bigoted black owner of a junk yard who was just as perplexed at the changes in his world. His son, Lamont, gently guided him though the exaggerated challenges he faced.

There were issues in America in the 1970s – the Vietnam War was detested by everybody except the defense industry, racial tensions persisted after the civil rights movement, and dishonesty by politicians was perceived as a growing problem. Inflation hit 12.3% in 1974 and Archie had to eat meatless spaghetti.

Fast forward to today. The Vietnam War has been replaced by the conflict in Ukraine, equally reviled for the American dollars being spent propping up a corrupt foreign government, but without loss of US troops – yet. Racial tension has returned as mobs of marauding young blacks loot retail stores in brazen attacks without fear of prosecution, while colleges and corporate employers openly discriminate against whites and Asians, and citizens are divided into groups of “oppressors” and “oppressed”. Political prisoners languish in fetid jails without due process or basic human rights. Drag queens twerk in front of kindergarteners, and school libraries feature gay pornography. Our cities are filled with drug-addled homeless squatters, while millions of illegals pour over our border and through our airports, filling taxpayer-funded hotels and enjoying perks that many hard-working Americans can’t afford. One hundred thousand Americans die from fentanyl overdoses every year. Our president gets away with taking millions in bribes from foreign adversaries and no one trusts our election process any more. Our government spends $2 trillion more per year than it takes in.

I guess turmoil is the normal state of affairs in our country. But people my age sense that things are getting worse instead of better as the slide away from Christian values gathers momentum. Despite artificial intelligence and smart phones in every hand, we seem to get stupider every day.

Archie and Fred would be shocked at the state of affairs today. Even Meathead, who was totally against the “establishment”, would be stunned to see his liberal Democrats defending big government corruption and abuse of citizens today.

The idyllic days of post-WW2 America are long gone, probably never to return.

My wife, an America First hard-right patriot, stopped by the Democrat booth at a festival to compare notes. They actually found much to agree on – everything is going to hell!

The difference is, back in the 1970s we were still able to laugh about it. Today free speech has been cancelled, the truth has been scrubbed from the internet and news media, and laughing is prohibited.

Tom Balek – Rockin’ On the Right Side

Boy the way Glen Miller played,
Songs that made the hit parade,
Guys like us we had it made,
Those were the days,
And you knew what you were then,
Girls were girls and men were men,
Mister we could use a man like Herbert Hoover again.
Didn’t need no welfare states
Everybody pulled his weight,
Gee our old Lasalle ran great,
Those were the days!

Those Were The Days – theme from All In The Family

We Should Declare War Against the Cartels

photo courtesy NY Times

The United States has committed more than $75 billion to Ukraine, ostensibly to defend them from Russia, Russia, Russia. We can speculate how much of that taxpayer funding finds its way back to the Biden crime family and others, but that’s another story.

It is an enormous sum considering we have to borrow every penny of it. And for what? What is our national interest in the dispute between Ukraine and Russia? How many Americans have died in Ukraine in the last two years? Answer: Six.

Meanwhile, in the same period, how many Americans have died of fentanyl overdoses? Answer: 220,000.

Almost all of the fentanyl in our country comes through our open border with Mexico. And this only happens with, through, and by the Mexican drug cartels.

I join a group of friends every Wednesday morning for a men’s prayer meeting. Last week we were gathered at our fast food meeting place as always, and we invited a nearby diner named Philip to join us. He listened quietly as we complained about how badly things are going in the USA. Then he said he had a “miracle” testimony that might make us feel better, at least comparatively.

Philip said he had met his wife over 20 years ago in Matamoros, Mexico just across the border from Brownsville, Texas. She was a native Mexican translator at a Christian conference he attended. And even though she died a few years after their marriage, Philip still keeps in touch with her family, their son, and the church they supported in Matamoros.

On a recent phone call with his former father-in-law he learned that conditions in Matamoros are getting desperate – the drug cartels have taken over every aspect of daily life. It is now unsafe to venture out of your home at any time, and if you do, you must pay a bribe to the cartel for everything you do. There is no law and order and the economy is in shambles.

Philip told the story of a young member of his church in Matamoros who made a living buying cars in the USA and selling them in southern Mexico. On a recent trip he and two friends got caught in a cartel roadblock. They were robbed of their car, money, watches, and even their shoes. Then they were dragged into the ditch where his friends were both executed point blank. When the pistol was raised to his head he prayed for his life, and as he did the murderer’s cell phone rang. The thug turned and ran to his car, leaving the young Christian shocked but unhurt. With his miracle faith aflame, he soon became the new pastor of his church.

Just south of our border is a war zone. While we send endless billions to the Ukraine war where six Americans have died in two years, we do absolutely nothing to stop the war in our own backyard that kills over a hundred thousand young Americans, and countless other souls, every year. Quite the opposite, the Biden administration supports the cartels by enabling them to extort billions of dollars from their victims who have been invited by Biden to enter our country illegally.

Former presidents GW Bush, Obama, and Trump all tried minor military solutions to solve the border problem, without much success. During his term, Trump investigated more aggressive military options, even up to firing missiles into Mexico, according to Mark Esper, former defense secretary. But our current president, sheltered by fawning news and social media, clearly prefers sending military money and equipment to Ukraine, where he gets a cut returned to him, while the Mexican drug cartels run amok on our border.

Fortunately, most GOP presidential candidates are hawkish about the cartels. In addition to Trump, Ron DeSantis, Nikki Haley, and Tim Scott agree that we should take unilateral action against the cartels if Mexican president Obrador refuses to. Asa Hutchinson and Mike Pence remain soft on the cartels. Vivek Ramaswamy has said he would use our military to “defend our borders”.

I have a hunch that $75 billion would buy more than enough whoop-ass to eliminate the cartels and finally establish immigration control at our border.

Tom Balek – Rockin’ On the Right Side

How many times must a man look up
Before he can see the sky?
Yes, ’n’ how many ears must one man have
Before he can hear people cry?
Yes, ’n’ how many deaths will it take till he knows
That too many people have died?
The answer, my friend, is blowin’ in the wind
The answer is blowin’ in the wind

Blowin’ In the Wind – Bob Dylan

Vote Against Crime

Last week my family visited a Home Depot in Charlotte.  This store has access to the adjacent shopping center through a public rear entrance.  Suddenly, directly in front of us, a group of thugs sprinted out the door with shopping carts loaded with expensive tools and products.  They threw the stuff into the back of their waiting getaway car, jumped in, and sped away, their empty carts spinning in the middle of the street.

Nobody followed them out.  Bewildered onlookers stared in shock.  By the time I fully understood what had happened, it was too late to look for a license plate or to make any attempt to stop them.  They felt no need for disguise, and laughed as they escaped with their easy pickings. It was clearly not their first rodeo.

I had seen this “grab and run” maneuver before at another Home Depot in Charlotte, and it is common these days in news reports from liberal cities across the country.

I went in to check on the employee greeter assigned to the door.  A recent immigrant, he sadly admitted Home Depot employees are forbidden to take any action during these crimes and are fired if they do.  All he could do was call the store manager and report the incident.  He said this happens all the time.  My wife talked to another employee in the store who said she once yelled at a young thief busting out the door and he laughed back, “you can’t stop me!”

I chatted with other witnesses, and everyone agreed that it will only get worse because the thugs know that (a) Home Depot does not hire armed security guards, (b) they will not allow their employees to respond to the thefts, and (c) even if the thugs do accidentally get caught by police, they will be back on the street in a few hours due to lax prosecution policies in liberal cities.

We all agreed that the wildly accelerating prices at Home Depot and other retailers are largely due to these “tolerant” theft policies.  I recently bought a package of copper wire at Lowe’s and had to get a manager to remove it from a locked cage.  He apologized, explaining that all of their stores had a promotion on wire, and their end-cap displays were emptied out the first day with losses in the tens of thousands of dollars per store.

Ask yourself why honest citizens who work to pay for their purchases should have to subsidize the party habits of local thugs?  How have the corporate executives, elected officials, district attorneys and judges become supporters of these creeps, at our expense?

We can restore law and order.  But it won’t happen unless we, the honest people, let all the above enablers know we are sick of their tolerance of crime.  If you are tired of rampant crime and higher prices, be careful how you vote.  And it wouldn’t hurt to let the corporate offices know how you feel, too.

Tom Balek – Rockin’ On the Right Side

We sat around the pile
We sat and laughed
We sat and laughed and waved it into the air!
And we did it just like that
When we want something, we don’t want to pay for it
We walk right through the door
Walk right through the door
Hey, all right!
If I get by, it’s mine, mine, mine, mine, mine, mine, mine . . .

Been Caught Stealing – Jane’s Addiction

Here’s a great song me and the kids love to play . . .

Why Is It Taking So Long?

We all know that our president, Joe Biden, is a crook.

photo by Washington Post

We all know that his son, Hunter, has been selling influence to foreign bad actors for decades, and that our president is badly compromised to the leadership of China and Ukraine, and others – probably even his own intelligence agencies. We all know that this is what causes him to enact policies and executive orders that are 100% bad for Americans and 100% good for our enemies.

Miranda Devine detailed all the Biden dirt in her brilliant book, Laptop From Hell, in 2021. Peter Schweitzer opened the Biden can of worms in Secret Empires three years earlier and again in Profiles in Corruption: Abuse of Power in 2020 . Both provided well-researched, documented, verified, unassailable facts about the extent and astonishing brazenness of the Biden family’s relentless money-grubbing corruption. Many other intrepid researchers and authors have reported daily on the Bidens’ fetid affairs.

We all know about it. The press knows. Republican elected officials all know. The Republican party leadership knows. The Democrats all know. The DOJ and all of the state district attorneys certainly know. Everybody knows that our president is a crook who is badly compromised and is selling his soul and our entire nation out to our enemies. We’ve known it for a long, long time.

Why, then, is Biden still our president, spending much of his time enjoying the luxuries of his multi-million dollar homes with no explanation for his incredible wealth? Why is his coke-headed, sex-addled, family-destroying son Hunter living in rented mansions and 5-star hotels with no visible (legal) means of support? Having blown through the millions he received selling access to his father, he now is reduced to selling his “art” to democrat donors and Chinese billionaires at a half-million bucks a pop. Why have 11 of his family members been receiving fat checks from money-laundering operations going back to when Joe was a senator?

How long can this go on? When will we see our once-great nation crumble at the feet of our adversaries? Will our J6 political prisoners suffer in gulags to their deaths, forgotten to history? Did our fathers, grandfathers, and forefathers spill their blood so that the Biden family (and other evil corrupticrats) could amass personal wealth and power at the expense of common Americans?

Half of us are Democrats and half are Republicans. The Democrats continue to tolerate the Biden stink because they shortsightedly want to share in the spoils he generates. They see him as a generator of wealth and power for their side, and have no moral compass.

Most Republican leaders and DC insiders complain about the corruption but won’t take any substantive action because they use the daily drip-drip-drip of shocking details about the Bidens and the Marxist left as a fundraising mechanism so they can hold on to their second-class political positions. None of the above care about the future of our nation or its people.

God help us if we, the American people, continue to tolerate lies and corruption. No, really. Only God can help us.

Tom Balek – Rockin’ On the Right Side

Well, I gave you everything I had
But you left me sitting on my own
Did you have to treat me oh, so bad
All I do is hang my head and moan
Tell me why you cried, and why you lied to me
Tell me why you cried, and why you lied to me

Tell Me Why – the Beatles






It’s Time to Admit “Climate Change” Is A Hoax

I will not waste your time recounting how leftists and communists worldwide have pounded their “global warming” and “climate change” hysteria over the last fifty years. You have seen and heard their apocalyptic warnings on a daily and hourly basis.

Sadly, the “green” movement has succeeded to such a degree that the lifestyle and activities we love could soon be gone, and we may now be facing a real apocalypse. Decades of indoctrination in schools, media, and pop culture has blinded us to political decisions that will have permanent consequences. The energy industry will no longer be able to meet our needs as highly efficient and inexpensive carbon-based fuels are being eliminated in favor of alternative technologies that don’t exist yet and perhaps never will. Our standard of living is already starting a decline that we may not be able to reverse.

The political and socio-economic implications are devastating because democratic nations have ceded the use of cheap energy and the accompanying economic growth to malevolent authoritarian governments.

And it’s all based on a lie. A deliberate one, but nonetheless a proven lie.

The Clintel Foundation (Climate Intelligence) was founded in 2019 by an independent group of climate scientists who study the climate change issue and communicate the results of their unbiased research. They have published a simple World Climate Declaration:

  • Natural as well as anthropogenic factors cause warming
  • Warming is far slower than predicted
  • Climate policy relies on inadequate models
  • CO2 is plant food, the basis of all life on Earth
  • Global warming has not increased natural disasters
  • Climate policy must respect scientific and economic realities

We can’t afford another year, day, or hour of delay. We have to stop the insanity NOW. We must reject all of the green nonsense, all of it, starting today.

Elections have consequences. Last week in a CNN interview President Trump was asked what his plan is to restore the economy. His answer: “Drill, Baby, Drill!”

Tom Balek – Rockin’ On the Right Side

Lies, lies – I can’t believe a word you say
Lies, lies – Are gonna make you sad someday

Lies – the Knickerbockers

Hypocricy, South Carolina Style

You may have heard that our South Carolina governor recently signed legislation that authorizes $1.3 billion of Palmetto State taxpayer cash, infrastructure spending, and tax incentives to Volkswagen/Scout for the construction of a new electric vehicle manufacturing plant near Columbia that might employ 4,000 workers and perhaps 4,000 more later if the new company survives.

Many of us are scratching our heads over the implications of this bill.  Most baffling is that while this legislation was under consideration our legislators promoted several bills that would prevent the encroachment of ESG (environmental, social, and governance) precepts into our state.  ESG may be the biggest threat to freedom in our time – when fully implemented, it will give government full control over all personal and commercial activity by assigning “social scores” based on which transactions are deemed environmentally and/or socially acceptable.  ESG is enforced by manipulating our funds via digital currency.  If that sounds familiar, it’s because communist China is well down that path, using social scores to influence spending, income, and activities. Thanks to state-controlled electronic banking, the CCP can track the activities of any person or company and stop any transaction or confiscate funds at any time.  Here in the USA, companies are already being refused bank loans and services because of the nature of their business.  Gun manufacturers and oil-related companies are the among the first targets. South Carolina bill H3564, introduced by my representative Doug Gilliam along with reps Burns and Leber, would prevent our state government from doing business with companies that discriminate or operate under the cloud of ESG.  Well done!

But at the same time, many SC congressmen who staunchly oppose ESG voted to support the gargantuan handout to Volkswagen, who state Senator Shane Martin called on the Senate floor “the poster child for ESG”.  At a recent local meeting Representative Gilliam said he can’t find any indication that Volkswagen will engage in ESG or require its local vendors and suppliers to do so.  But the VW website features a large segment on “supplier sustainability” which requires vendors to comply with their directives for “sustainability management, environment, human rights and working conditions, ethics and compliance, as well as responsible sourcing of raw materials.”  Any South Carolina vendors who don’t measure up will presumably not make the cut.

Senator Martin also pointed out that the cost per new job is roughly $350,000 and articulated how many other critical state programs could make good use of those funds.  I submit that if the goal of our legislature is to create new jobs, and incentives to employers is their method of choice, why not just offer a calculated tax credit to loyal, existing SC employers for every new job they add?  Isn’t a new job at the local retailer or construction site just as valuable as a VW job?  Our home-grown companies would love to be able to afford the $58k annual earnings for hourly jobs touted by VW and subsidized by taxpayers.  It would be less disruptive to existing companies who don’t need new competitors taking away their trained employees.  It would be quicker, and less costly – no new interstate ramps or infrastructure needed.  Not to mention the taxpayers would not be saddled with the risk of bankrolling a foreign-owned, China-dependent “woke” company in an industry that, to date, has not been able to operate profitably without heavy government subsidies and that causes more environmental damage with open-pit mining and disposal of heavy-metal components in batteries than it can ever offset. Even Ford, despite Herculian effort, has not been able to build EVs profitably and announced new plans to double-down on high-tech carbon-fueled vehicles.  Volkswagen’s CEO has admitted that the company is being politically forced into its ESG position both by European interests and heavy-handed Chinese influence.

South Carolina taxpayers are fronting $400 million in cash to VW.   SC legislators justified most of the other $900 million as permanent infrastructure which will serve the area in the future, plus tax incentives. To their credit, lawmakers did put in “clawback” provisions which would require VW to pay us back in case something goes wrong.  Hopefully we won’t have a Solyndra-type situation to deal with.  In the end, the VW proposal was, on the surface, just too sexy for 96 of our 108 voting legislators to resist.

Still, the dichotomy between VW and ESG doesn’t go away.  If VW follows through with their ESG plans and ideology, both internally and to associated entities (including the state), how will South Carolina actually enforce our new anti-ESG laws?

Tom Balek – Rockin’ On the Right Side

Money changes everything
I said money, money changes everything
We think we know what we’re doin’
That don’t mean a thing
It’s all in the past now
Money changes everything

MONEY CHANGES EVERYTHING – Cyndi Lauper