Government-funded electric car company folds; more than $500,000 in taxpayer funds lost

Product of Green Vehicles

Madison Ruppert, Contributing Writer
Activist Post

The State of California is completely overwhelmed by debt; roughly $377 billion in debt to be specific. To make matters worse, the City of Salinas and their residents are now going to have to eat over half of a million dollars in lost taxpayer dollars.  Mike Ryan, President and Co-Founder of the now-defunct Green Vehicles company just added insult to injury by breaking the news to city officials via e-mail.

This represents something far too common in today’s world of bloated, incompetent government: funding of non-viable or unreliable projects with taxpayer money with no guarantees.

Green Vehicles received two loans from the government of Salinas since 2009, one for $300,000 and an additional $240,000 loan after the corporation began showing their hand as a failure.

In situations like these, the people of Salinas who are having their hard-earned money squandered by bureaucrats should be able to dictate the terms and approval of a loan. Perhaps if the local government held a town hall and/or a vote they wouldn’t be struggling to get a measly half of the lost funds returned.

Ineffective government spending has become the norm, with Federally-funded public schooling being a perfect example of a giant money sink that bears little to no fruit.

Taxpayers should not be allowing local governments to engage in the same ill-advised practices.

The fact is that when government gets involved in an enterprise that should be in the realm of the private free market, it rarely benefits the people.

Another example of the inept and corrupt government spending culture that comes to mind is the United States Postal Service. After hundreds of years in government subsidies and a former monopoly, they continue to fall far short of the standards set by private businesses like FedEx, UPS, DHL, etc.

In 2009 the USPS managed to lose $3.8 billion while even under extreme economic hardship FedEx was able to post $98 million in profits during 2009.

If someone approached me looking for a loan after proving themselves to be completely incapable of following through, I would not hesitate to tell them that it will never happen.

Why are our supposed representatives in government any different? What about their position gives them the impression that the money either is not real or it does not matter?

With record debt, why are we allowing governments either local or federal to invest in anything without the consent of the people? If we continue to have our country signed on to more debt, the already gargantuan public debt and annual deficit will only continue to grow.

Regardless of what the financial terrorists at the IMF or the private Federal Reserve babble about, the economic reality is that we cannot handle more debt, nor do we need it to begin with.

The entire climate of fear surrounding the debt ceiling issue is very similar to the one created in order to push through the 2008 banker bailouts. In reality, it is unlikely that we will default if the debt ceiling is not raised.

The people of America cannot sit back any longer and watch a clearly ineffectual monetary policy and investment strategy destroy our economy. We must demand full control over every single cent we pay into government, and maintain total authority over if, when, and where our money is spent. Without this, we will continue to see the government invest in companies that struggle from the start, then announce their failure via e-mail and watch our money go down the drain with it.