Daily Caller piece: "Obama’s spending failure"

My piece starts this way:

According to President Obama, cutting government spending will “certainly slow our recovery.” Over and over again, he has described the sequester’s threatened $85 billion cut in spending out of a $3.8 trillion budget as “devastating.” But that represents a mere 2 percent cut in spending. Obama frightens people by pretending that the $1 trillion cut takes place right away rather than being spread out over 10 years. 

Sounds like more of the same. During the 2008 presidential campaign, Obama continually promised to “cut net spending” and make government smaller. The stimulus was promised not to “raise projected deficits beyond a short horizon of a year or at most two.” Yet, now during the fifth year of Obama’s presidency, we are told that we can’t cut spending, that we need even more government “investments.” . . .

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Massive 41% fraud in government free cell phone program

41% fraud?  And this from the FCC.  Might the real rate be even higher?  From the WSJ:

The U.S. government spent about $2.2 billion last year to provide phones to low-income Americans, but a Wall Street Journal review of the program shows that a large number of those who received the phones haven't proved they are eligible to receive them. 

The Lifeline program—begun in 1984 to ensure that poor people aren't cut off from jobs, families and emergency services—is funded by charges that appear on the monthly bills of every landline and wireless-phone customer. Payouts under the program have shot up from $819 million in 2008, as more wireless carriers have persuaded regulators to let them offer the service. 

Suspecting that many of the new subscribers were ineligible, the Federal Communications Commission tightened the rules last year and required carriers to verify that existing subscribers were eligible. The agency estimated 15% of users would be weeded out, but far more were dropped. 

A review of five top recipients of Lifeline support conducted by the FCC for the Journal showed that 41% of their more than six million subscribers either couldn't demonstrate their eligibility or didn't respond to requests for certification. . . . .

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Big surprise: Despite years of subsidies, solar energy industry collapses when subsidies cut

So much for the claim that all the solar energy industry needed as a jump start.  From Fox News:

The solar industry got a huge boost during President Obama's first term when the stimulus package threw billions of dollars in subsidies at solar power companies in hopes of dramatically increasing production. Generation has increased in that time -- but now federal, state and local incentives are being slashed, leading some to conclude the future of solar power in the U.S. is dimming.  

"The fundamental problem is it's not economically sustainable," said Todd Myers of the Washington Policy Center, a think tank in Washington state.  

Federal stimulus incentives have run out and are not being renewed. States are also slashing their solar power subsidies. Oregon recently cut its solar business tax credit by 99 percent. And utilities all over the country are complaining about lost revenue.  . . .  

"Everywhere you go, solar energy requires massive subsidies, which eventually blow a hole in the federal or state budget, and then are dropped," said Myers. "Solar is a bad way to go."

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Obama tired of hearing about cutting spending

Remember the numbers about how health insurance premiums for many individuals are soaring under Obamacare?  Or Obama's promises to cut "net government spending"?  Well, how is that working out for you Mr. President?  From the WSJ:

The president's insistence that Washington doesn't have a spending problem, Mr. Boehner says, is predicated on the belief that massive federal deficits stem from what Mr. Obama called "a health-care problem." Mr. Boehner says that after he recovered from his astonishment—"They blame all of the fiscal woes on our health-care system"—he replied: "Clearly we have a health-care problem, which is about to get worse with ObamaCare. But, Mr. President, we have a very serious spending problem." He repeated this message so often, he says, that toward the end of the negotiations, the president became irritated and said: "I'm getting tired of hearing you say that." . . .

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Government subsidies keep being thrown away on green investments

Apparently, Delaware and the federal government have a lot of extra money to throw away.  From Fox News:

Delaware taxpayers appear to be getting soaked twice under a deal in which the Democratic governor loaned $21.5 million to a hybrid electric carmaker to set up shop in the state. The company has yet to produce a car in Delaware, and taxpayers are footing the electric bill for the idle plant.  

The deal was enthusiastically announced in 2009 by Gov. Jack Markell and Vice President Biden -- formerly Delaware's senior senator -- as a way to bring as many as 2,500 green jobs to the state. But California-based Fisker Automotive Inc. has since suffered a series of setbacks that have compounded its shaky financial situation.  

"It has not worked out the way he had envisioned," Markell spokeswoman Cathy Rossi acknowledged Monday in a statement to FoxNews.com. "We didn't know and couldn't have known about the underlying technical and financial problems."  

Delaware reportedly has paid at least $400,000 in utility bills since about April, when Fisker halted operations and laid off dozens of workers at the 142-acre, Wilmington-area facility. Markell staffers told The News Journal the payments are part of the grant deal and necessary to at least keep Fisker's small-scale operation on life support. . . . .  

However, in February the U.S. Energy Department stopped disbursements on Fisker's $529 million loan because the company purportedly failed to meet production and sales goals on its electric plug-in sedan, the Karma.  . . .

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