More Franklin Stoves Less Solar Panels

In 2010 to resounding applause, President Obama touted Abound Solar as American's investment into green energy that would give us 1500 permanent jobs.  Today, it's bankrupt, leaving behind an empty shell of a building filled with broken glass and toxic waste.  Unsold inventory including 2,000 solar panels, which would have been sold to offset some of the hundred of millions of dollars in losses, have mysteriously disappeared.

With the $2 billion the federal government poured into green energy initiatives in the past few years, none of the companies highlighted by President Obama and drooled over by liberals are in existence today.

While one can certainly question the viability of green energy firms, the bigger picture here is worth scrutiny.  Why should government and not private enterprise promote any industry?  The marketplace will determine the viability and necessity of consumer goods, not the feds.

History proves that a majority of our modern conveniences, those that keep us safe or make our lives easier, have been born of private enterprise.  The great inventors of the last century weren't working for the government.  They were private entrepreneurs and they gave us the technological foundation of what we have today.  They are not the evil people portrayed in Common Core classrooms, they are benefactors of our modern way of life.

Benjamin Franklin invented the Franklin stove that used less wood and prevented fires.  He felt the benefits of this new kind of stove were so important that he sidestepped a patent on it so that everyone could benefit from his invention.

Private industry not the American government will bring us innovation and technology.  Private enterprise will give us better, faster, safer products and services.  The government cannot cherry pick that which they "feel" are worthy, or the ones they "want" to succeed based on political and social ideology.

The marketplace is the great equalizer.  The American people cannot be forced into buying what they do not desire.  Businesses cannot run at a loss.  The government cannot and must not prop up industries that simply do not work...yet.  If solar energy is our future, then it will be cost-effectively born of private endeavor.

"If a coal, oil or gas company pulled something like that the EPA would send out SWAT teams and the U.S. Marshals to track down the offenders, bankrupt or not."

- National Legal and Policy Center, a think tank