WASHINGTON – Today, President Obama will speak at Johnson Controls, a technology company focused on advanced batteries, in Holland, Michigan. Johnson stands to benefit from new federal rules imposed by the Obama Administration last month that increases corporate average fuel economy (CAFE) standards to 54.5 miles per gallon.
The President will undoubtedly receive a warm welcome at the company’s headquarters: Johnson Controls received $316,537,977 from American taxpayers through President Obama’s stimulus plan.
Such preferential treatment for Johnson Controls is in line with President Obama’s view of how government should function: subsidize politically-connected companies with taxpayer cash and establish regulations that force Americans to use that company’s products.
The enormous increase in subsidies and regulations under the Obama Administration is yet another step away from consumer-driven markets towards a government-controlled economy.
In response to the President’s trip, Daniel Kish, senior vice president for policy at the Institute for Energy Research, issued the following response:
“Instead of looking at Holland, Michigan’s green energy subsidies, the President should be learning from Holland – the Netherlands – where their government just became the first in the European Union to reject renewable energy mandates and cut subsidies for green power. In that Holland, it was decided that neither the government nor the consumers could afford to pay the much higher costs of so-called green energy.
“As much as all of us would love for these technologies to be affordable and attractive to consumers, they are not panning out, here or abroad. The President’s obsession with the fiction of green energy continues to play a cruel joke on working Americans by continuing to spend money the United States doesn’t have on products Americans won’t buy.
“President Obama likes to tout the jobs artificially created by subsidizing projects with borrowed money. What he doesn’t seem to realize is that these jobs will exist only as long as money from Washington funds them. Most Americans know that Washington money is running out, even if the President doesn’t.”
