‘Green jobs’ & private hotels
There’s a new report out claiming that “clean energy” is “driving Pennsylvania’s job growth.”
Sigh. We’ve been down this road before, from the reclassification of existing jobs to, suddenly, “new green jobs,” to the taxpayer subsidies for so many of these “green” positions.
And one of the more absolutely ridiculous comments associated with this latest report is the founder and owner of one solar energy company noting that if only the state would mandate the use of more solar energy, why “that could easily double the amount (sic) of jobs with good, sound state policy.”
How deep the crony “greens” have sunk into the quicksand of malarkey mixed with nescience.
Never mind that government has no business mandating the use of one form of energy over another. Perverting the marketplace and propping up any energy source whose growth isn’t spawned by consumer demand is anathema to sound public policy.
The intellectual dishonesty and ignorance of fundamental economics in the “green energy” debate is a national tragedy.
Buried deep in the belly of a Post-Gazette story about the Rivers Casino being “ready to get rolling on (a) $60 million hotel” is this pertinent nugget, from the 19th paragraph:
“The development will be privately funded.”
It represents, refreshingly, the continuation of a plethora of new hotel rooms being built in Pittsburgh proper without public subsidies.
Perhaps taxpayers should print out a copy of the story, highlight the aforementioned line and send it to VisitPittsburgh. That’s the quasi-government tourism agency that keeps insisting a massive taxpayer subsidy is desperately needed to build a new hotel at the taxpayer-funded David L. Lawrence Convention Center. That, of course, to make it more attractive to those who likely will see their rent to use the facility deeply discounted or even waived.
All together now – AHEM.
Colin McNickle is communications and marketing director at the Allegheny Institute for Public Policy (cmcnickle@alleghenyinstitute.org).