#ncga: A crony-capitalist fairy tale from Andy Wells
Mother Goose, meet state senator Andy Wells:
Asking Permission
He works from sunrise to sunset, spent the last 40 years raising his family, sent his children to college (where they graduated without debt), contributes to his church, pays his taxes to help build the public schools and he’s done it all by growing corn and wheat and raising chickens and hogs.
He’s a farmer.
When it rains too much he can’t plant and when it rains too little his crops wither. It’s hard to know which is worse, late spring frosts or the early fall frosts. A microscopic virus can wipe out all his chickens and, as he watches, months of backbreaking work (and money) disappear.
He wonders sometimes what he’s done to deserve the treatment he receives from Mother Nature – he both loves and curses nature. In the end, like his father and grandfather before him, he simply rolls up his sleeves and goes back to work to dig out of whatever hole he’s in.
One day not long ago a man came to see him who wanted to lease the back 40 acres, where nothing hardly ever seemed to grow, for a solar farm. His wife liked the idea. She said it would be the first time they ever received money that did not require their own sweat to earn. It would also mean no longer having to mow 40 acres of brambles every winter, after the yellow jackets were gone.
But now it looks like he may have waited too long to sign the agreement.
A bureaucrat sitting in Raleigh has decided he – the farmer – doesn’t have enough sense to decide whether to rent his land. That the government needs to tell him what to do. So now, it looks like, he’s going to need to ask a bureaucrat for permission to rent his own land.
All he can do is shake his head. And offer a silent apology to Mother Nature.
Sounds like a bunch of bed-wetting leftist crap, huh? (Making money without sweating? Is THAT in the GOP platform now?) Unfortunately, it comes from a REPUBLICAN state senator from Catawba County. (He’s got this on his web site. And he 
had the gall to email it to his colleagues in the House.)
It’s pretty dishonest to portray opposition to solar subsidies as “big government.” I — and many others — don’t care if you want to invest your hard-earned money in solar farms. Just don’t force me to subsidize your “risk” via my tax dollars and astronomical utility bills. Making money is fine. Just do it with YOUR MONEY and YOUR HARD WORK.
It’s getting harder and harder to figure out Andy on this whole subsidies thing. On one hand, he has griped about the state shelling out money to recruit industry. Yet, he has voted to approve money for JUST THAT.
Why is ol’ Andy giving us all of this theatre over solar energy? It may have something to do with the $2,000 his campaign got from solar-loving gazillionaire Jay Faison on October 28 of last year.
Yessiree, your North Carolina Republicans are for sale cheap, and our guys are out there buying. Our hard core environmentalists first bought your two progressive Republican consultants, Paul Shumaker and Dee Stewart, but we have also bought a bunch of your legislators, too. They now support President Obama’s green energy policy, not your silly little Republican platform. The best way to enact progressive policy these days is not to depend on the Democrats, but instead to buy Republicans. They are cheap dates and you don’t have to kiss them when you are finished.
Jay Faison is the Tom Steyer of North Carolina. He is just a strong a backer of President Obama’s policies.
Your Republican legislators are not only happy to throw their party platform under the bus, but also their own constituents. Like all us big time environmentalists, they don’t give a rat’s ass that these green energy policies will drive electric rates through the roof. Who really cares if the redneck peons will not be able to afford air conditioning. They do not deserve it in the first place, and depriving them of it will help save Polar Bears.
Lets look where this is going.
Bureaucrats in Raleigh do not decide on how land can be used. That is the bureaucrats in your county seat, and it is called zoning (and these hideous solar ”farms” should have the same zoning as hog farms).
The ”bureaucrats in Raleigh” would be the Department of Revenue officials who determine if a solar ”farm” can get a big taxpayer subsidy or not. Wells seem to be promoting more corporate welfare for these solar parasites, and I guess we will see a move to do that in the short session, or he probably would not have bothered to put this nonsense up.
Those boondoggle solar subsidies from the NC taxpayer are supposed to be winding down, but the giveaway provisions in the wind down (or ”safe harbor”) bill are already soaking taxpayers royally. We do not need taxpayers to be screwed any more than they already are. Locke has pointed out figures from DOR that the wind down / safe harbor bill is already going to cost NC taxpayers nearly a billion dollars. That is a billion dollars that could have gone to roads, schools, tax cuts, and a lot of other useful places instead of corporate welfare to the pockets of the greedy solar special interest.
Congratulations, Andy. You have made Top Hog Obama Republican, and earned a place on the enemies list of the taxpayers of North Carolina. The sooner you are removed from office, the better. With ”Republicans” like you, who needs Democrats?
Agree, Governor and the appointed 5 members to the NC Marine Fisheries Commission of 5 CCA members of 9 Total members have over- regulated Commercial Fishing Industry. Fish caught has reduced to 75% because of too many regulations. Only 3 members have Commercial Fishing knowledge of 9 Total MF Commission. Incomes = 75% – 80% Reductions. Governor refused to respond to NC Commercial Fishermen. Apparently Reducing incomes, employment for all coastal counties he will not respond! NOAA Fisheries Economics for 2012 revealed Commercial Fisheries Sales are $ 140 Billion; Recreational Fisheries Sales are $ 58 Billion. Commercial Fishing Industries employed 1.27 Million; Recreational Fishing employed 380,000. Boat building and engines drove the Recreational Fishing which durable equipment represents 82% of employment impacts, 82 % of total sales and impacts, and 81% of value added impacts. ( Only 19 % Is actually Recreational Fishing.) Nothing has been achieved from Commercial Fishing Research to increase Marine Life/ Seafood To reduce Pollution and stir up closed dead coastal sea bottoms! NC folks will have imported seafood raised in Pooh and trade with chemicals! Governor Pat McCroy has NOT followed the Magnuson Stevens Act. FED.ACT MARINE RESOURCES of the US are to be used to benefit the entire country, the commercial seafood industry is by far the most effective and democratic way to accomplish that goal. SEAFOOD NEWS by Jack Sackton source of 2012 data, 2014 printed. CCA members = 2,300 Licensed Recreational Fishermen. 2 Million Licensed Recreational in NC, CCA represents only 1% of all Licensed Recreational Fishermen. Majority of Recreational Fishermen that we have talked to do Not want these Over regulations they enjoy eating seafood all year long and buy Local US seafood when they return to their home away from the coast! GREEDY CCA want all the 200 pound 5 feet long trophy Fish. Usually no one eats these Trophy Fish.