{"id":104036,"date":"2022-08-21T16:16:38","date_gmt":"2022-08-21T20:16:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thedailygouge.com\/?p=104036"},"modified":"2022-08-21T16:16:43","modified_gmt":"2022-08-21T20:16:43","slug":"the-daily-gouge-archive-friday-august-19th-2022","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thedailygouge.com\/?p=104036","title":{"rendered":"The Daily Gouge Archive, Friday, August 19th, 2022"},"content":{"rendered":"

It’s Friday, August 19th, 2022…but before we begin, Jim Freeman warns us…<\/strong><\/p>\n

When Bill Gates Dines with Politicians<\/span><\/span><\/a>…<\/span><\/h1>\n

…taxpayers beware<\/span><\/a>!<\/span><\/h3>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

If your humble correspondent were among the opinion writers in modern media who style themselves as \u201cfact checkers,\u201d perhaps this column would have no choice but to label a Tuesday presidential statement as \u201cmostly false.\u201d<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

In the State Dining Room of the White House, President\u00a0Joe Biden\u00a0said:<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

And I\u2019m about to sign the Inflation Reduction Act into law, one of the most significant laws in our history. Let me say from the start: With this law, the American people won and the special interests lost.<\/span> The American people won and the special interests lost.<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Shortly afterward, Akshat Rathi and Jennifer Dlouhy of Bloomberg\u00a0reported<\/a><\/span><\/em><\/span>:<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

It was the middle of July \u2014 with temperatures surging through one of the hottest summers in US history, half of the country in drought \u2014 and the Senate\u2019s all-important member, Joe Manchin of West Virginia, had slammed the brakes on legislation to combat global warming. Again.<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

That\u2019s when billionaire philanthropist and clean-energy investor\u00a0Bill Gates\u00a0got on the phone with Senate Majority Leader\u00a0Chuck Schumer, whose job it was to hold together the Democrats\u2019 no-vote-to-spare majority.<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

One of the world\u2019s richest men felt he had to give one of the nation\u2019s most powerful lawmakers a little pep talk. \u201c[Schumer] said to me on one call that he\u2019d shown infinite patience,\u201d Gates recounted in an interview last week, describing for the first time his personal effort to keep climate legislation alive.<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019re right,\u201d Gates told Schumer.<\/span> \u201cAnd all you need to do is show infinite plus one patience.\u201d<\/strong><\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

Gates was banking on more than just his trademark optimism about addressing climate change and other seemingly intractable problems that have been his focus since stepping down as\u00a0Microsoft<\/a>\u2019s chief executive two decades ago. As he revealed to Bloomberg Green, he has quietly lobbied Manchin and other senators, starting before President Joe Biden had won the White House, in anticipation of a rare moment in which heavy federal spending might be secured for the clean-energy transition.<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Mr. Gates, who is worth about $115 billion\u00a0according to Forbes, is not the only one cheering the new Biden spending plan. Other<\/em><\/span> billionaires or even mere millionaires who bet big<\/em><\/span> on solar and wind energy and battery technology should enjoy a nice Biden bump. The Bloomberg account continues:<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Gates started wooing Manchin and other senators who might prove pivotal for clean-energy policy in 2019 over a meal in Washington DC. \u201cMy dialogue with Joe has been going on for quite a while,\u201d Gates said. \u201cAlmost everyone<\/span> on the energy committee\u201d \u2014 of which Manchin was then the senior-most Democrat \u2014 \u201ccame over and spent a few hours with me over dinner.\u201d<\/span><\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

It sure is nice to be able to summon almost an entire congressional committee to one\u2019s table. While this might prove challenging for the average American, there are few interests in Washington more special than someone who sits atop a pile valued at north of $100 billion.<\/span> But given all his wealth, why does Bill Gates need to go to Washington? Mr. Rathi and Ms. Dlouhy report:<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

…innovations that start in university labs often need even more government support to reach mass adoption, according to the way Gates sees things. Take a startup making carbon-free cement<\/span> \u2014 success means bringing to market a product that\u2019s as much as three times as expensive as normal cement<\/span>.<\/span><\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

This is no hypothetical for Gates. His investments through Breakthrough Energy, the Gates organization that does climate work, has sunk at least tens of millions<\/em><\/span> into green cement startups such as Ecocem, Chement and Brimstone.<\/span> None have yet reached commercial scale. He saw the bankruptcy filing of a battery startup he backed, Aquion, that might have had a fighting chance if energy-storage tax credits<\/em><\/span> were available.<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Is there a more worthy<\/em> cause for taxpayers<\/em><\/span> than trying to turn such losing investments into winners<\/em><\/span>? To be fair, Mr. Gates was hardly the only person advocating for the enactment of the giant subsidy bonanza.<\/span> Alternative-energy companies, union bosses and executives at numerous nonprofit organizations also helped campaign for a big tax-and-spending hike. Mr. Rathi and Ms. Dlouhy note:<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Two weeks of throw-everything-at-the-wall lobbying paid off. On July 27, Schumer and Manchin unveiled more than $37 billion in annual spending over the next decade on climate and energy.<\/strong><\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

Perhaps<\/em><\/span> Mr. Biden had trouble with the teleprompter on Tuesday and intended<\/em><\/span> to say that the special interests won and the American people lost.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

As for Mr. Gates, sensible friends or family members could have tried to warn him not to associate with the unsavory characters who populate the D.C. swamp. But maybe he knew all along that the climate bill was not going to kill itself.<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

As regards the real winners and losers, here’s the juice: As Tucker records…<\/strong><\/p>\n