White House analyst warned saving Solyndra could cost more than letting it fail

[alp227]

Source: Washington Post

As the Obama administration moved last year to bail out Solyndra, the embattled flagship of the president’s initiative to promote alternative energy, a White House budget analyst calculated that millions of taxpayer dollars might be saved by cutting the government’s losses, shuttering the company immediately and selling its assets, according to a congressional investigation.

Even so, senior officials in the White House’s Office of Management and Budget did not discourage the Energy Department from proceeding with its plan to restructure a federal loan to Solyndra — a move that put private investors ahead of taxpayers for repayment if the company closed, the investigation by Republicans on the House Energy and Commerce Committee found.

The restructuring went forward, but within months Solyndra failed anyway, leaving federal taxpayers on the hook for much of the half-billion-dollar federal loan. Now, a year after the company’s collapse, debate continues over whether the refinancing plan was legal or a wise investment. Last week, Solyndra’s final liquidation plan estimated that the government will recover just $24 million of the $527 million that taxpayers lent to the company.

Details about the debate emerge in internal government documents. They show that Energy Department officials argued that Solyndra might be able to pull out of its downward spiral if given an emergency infusion of cash.

Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/white-house-budget-analysts-thought-saving-solyndra-could-be-expensive-move/2012/08/01/gJQAf2QGQX_singlePage.html

[truedelphi]

1. Anyone else here think that by the time the Republicans examine and investigate every

Single facet of this fiasco, the government will have spent more on the investigation than the hundreds of millions lost by financing Solyndra itself?

I keep getting that Whitewater feeling about this.

[JDPriestly]

3. Right, truedelphi.

And what is more, the Solyndra bail-out is nothing compared to the amounts we pay to help out the oil companies.

I wonder how much the BP spill actually will have cost the American taxpayers when the damage is truly taken care of.

And then there are the oil subsidies, the environmental damage that we will sooner or later have to deal with, from oil and coal, and the cost of sustaining a military strong enough to keep the oil pipelines and production around the world under our control.

[DCKit]

2. So what's our take from bailing out Wall St. to the tune of billions?

I'm so going to go with Obama on this.

[Kolesar]

4. I think the public got stuck with $60 billion in bad debt at the end of TARP...

...or whatever the program was called.