Three More Knee-Slapping Hoots From Our Government's Executive Branch

With turbo tax cheating Timothy Geithner's Treasury Department now joining the pack of federal departments, bureaus, commissions, agencies, committees, etc., investigating the government's latest multimillion dollar pratfall, the curtain is going up on a keystone kops komedy as various twigs of the government's executive branch begin to fall all over, investigate, and point fingers at one another.

The real mission of each investigation is of course to deflect blame and responsibility away from the investigating entity . . . to some other entity, which is likely to be engaged in a similar endeavor. All of this naturally is being done with taxpayer money, a half-billion dollars of which were lost in the transaction which is the ostensible subject of the investigation.

That transaction is the one in which the geniuses who dispense funds from the public treasury dropped somewhere between $528 million and $535 million dollars -- nobody seems to be quite sure of the exact amount as the numbers keep changing -- into Solyndra, the California solar panel maker that went down the bankruptcy drain with the money. The money was plunked in as America's share of the solar panel industry was plummeting and China's was soaring and Solyndra's auditors and industry investment analysts were warning that the company's business wasn't viable. Having no private industry or investment experience, those dispensing other peoples' money from the public treasury didn't see attempting to catch falling knives as a risky undertaking. Nor did they balk at  subordinating the government's position to that of Solyndra's well connected private investors whose money had gone in and been lost previously but who now stand to get their money back in full before the public treasury recovers anything.

Watching the multitude of investigators stumbling over one another in the charade of our government's executive branch investigating itself is going to be a knee slapping hoot . . . though I doubt it's going to be worth what we have paid to have it take place.

Production of a third knee--slapping act now is being attempted as the Obama administration simultaneously seeks to change the name of the performance from Economic Stimulus to American Jobs Act and to get hundreds of billions more taxpayer dollars to dispense with the same care and wisdom. 

Wondering what the second hoot was? Well, it's on right now . . . it's the current spectacle of  the administration audaciously seeking the approvals and appropriations necessary to put its planned second economic boondoggle act on stage.