Barack Obama attempted to distance himself from his disastrous and very public support of Solyndra in a radio interview on Tuesday saying "Understand, this was not our program per se. Congress–Democrats and Republicans–put together a loan guarantee program…to help start-up companies get to scale."Fact Check.org finds more than one inaccuracy in his assertions:
President Obama exaggerated when defending his administration’s approval of a $535 million loan guarantee to Solyndra, a now-defunct solar company.
Obama referred to Solyndra’s loan at an Oct. 6 press conference as “a loan guarantee program that predates me.” That’s not accurate. It’s true that the Energy Policy Act of 2005 created a loan guarantee program for clean-energy companies developing “innovative technologies.” But Solyndra’s loan guarantee came under another program created by the president’s 2009 stimulus for companies developing “commercially available technologies.”
The president also overstated past Republican support for the program, saying “all of them in the past have been supportive of this loan guarantee program.” Republicans overwhelmingly opposed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, and some of them even voted against the Energy Policy Act of 2005 at a time when Republicans controlled both houses of Congress.
Obama seems to think that because he says something, even explicit lies, that Americans will automatically allow him to rewrite history and believe every word.
The photo at the top is of Obama, very publicly and specifically giving his personal support to Solyndra and holding them up as a shining example of his policies and his American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009.
Solyndra has filed for bankruptcy causing massive layoffs and costs the American taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars.
You can read more about the Solyndra scandal that is rocking the Obama administration at ABC News in an investigative piece they published back in December.
Teaser:
Federal auditors had flagged the $535 million loan to Solyndra, saying some applicants had benefitted from special treatment. And by September, when Solyndra had shut its doors and declared bankruptcy, members of Congress wanted answers. Congress began demanding information about the loan, which had aroused suspicion because one of the lead private investors in Solyndra was an Oklahoma billionaire who also served as an Obama "bundler," raising money during the 2008 presidential campaign.
It is time for Obama advisers to tell him to man up, grow a pair, admit his mistakes and stop trying to blame others for his own very public failures.
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