My arguments against Obama’s “green jobs” push are often based in a free-market belief (subsidies and mandates are bad) and in these initiatives’ tendency to turn into boondoggles for the well-connected.
But many folks on the Left and the center-Right believe in government steering the economy, and think that government cooperation with big business is often a good thing. I’d put the New America Foundation in that camp. But the folks at NAF tweeted today to express agreement with me on “green jobs.”
For one thing, there’s the fact that our green subsidies often spur foreign manufacturers. I wrote today about a new $2.1 billion subsidy to a German company that will use German-made robots to make high-precision mirrors for a solar power plant.
Samuel Sherradan at NAF contends that this sort of thing is systemic:
Thus, job creation for production of green technologies may occur far more outside than inside the United States. Investing in green energy will create jobs, but many of these jobs may be created elsewhere.
Again, Sherradan doesn’t agree with most of what I say on subsidies and government’s role in the economy, but I think he’s spot on here:
