Recent revelations about the way that president Obama’s plan to weatherize U.S. homes has gotten off to a less than stellar start symbolize what’s wrong with so-called “green jobs.” Green job programs depend on government subsidies and mandates, require government oversight and, as a result of those two factors, are slightly less efficient than your average Rube Goldberg machine.

Rubert Goldberg photo

One year into the $5 billion program, the government has weatherized five per cent of the target number of homes overall, and less than fifty per cent of what was expected for 2009. The problem? Government rules, believe it or not. Gosh, who could have possibly foreseen that glitch in the plan? But, it seems that it’s difficult to figure out how much to pay contractors, how to protect historic homes and how to solve the nuances of a host of other problems for which government needs to formulate policies and procedures.

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if there was a system in which some responsible party – say, the homeowner for example – could make those decisions and save the United States the time, expense and trouble of having to do so? Wait, I seem to remember that we used to have a system something like that. It was called “capitalism,” or some such.

“It seems like every day there is a new wrench in the works that keeps us from moving ahead,” said program manager Joanne Chappell-Theunissen. “We keep playing catch-up.”

Not to worry, those green jobs are going to turn the economy around. How do we know that? That government of the United States says so. Home weatherization is another example of the kind of job creation program that we so badly need.

“This is the beginning of the next industrial revolution with the explosion of clean energy investments,” said assistant U.S. Energy Secretary Cathy Zoi. “These are good jobs that are here to stay.”

Well, these jobs may not actually be here “to stay,” but a program that completes five per cent of its assigned work each year will probably be around for at least a couple of decades. Obama and environmental types tell us that green jobs are a key to economic recovery. The cry “what’s good for the environment is good for the economy” has been heard more and more of late. That’s a natural progression, since climategate, glaciergate, amazongate and other global warming scandals have shown that “what’s good for the environment” doesn’t make much of a difference to the actual environment.

polar-bear

The president has pointed toward Spain as an example of a green economy that the US ought to emulate. The green model hasn’t worked out that well for Spain, unfortunately. Spain is flirting with unemployment rates approaching twenty per cent and, according to one study, green jobs are a big part of the problem. Dr. Gabriel Calzada, an economics professor at Juan Carlos University in Madrid, concluded that every green job created in Spain cost 2.2 conventional (aka: “real”) jobs in that nation.

Do we expect anything different in the health care sector as the government takes over ultimate responsibility for that part of the economy? Daniel Gross, a senior editor at Newsweek sure does. His May 11 column redefined the terms “convoluted logic.”  The health care industry is inefficient and expensive, right? Gross agrees. And, even before Obamacare was passed into law, government had grabbed a larger role in providing health care than private industry, right? Gross concedes that point too. So how would Gross fix an inefficient, expensive system that is already dominated by government? Add more government of course. And a pox on any damned Republican who dares to suggest that more government is not the answer. Here’s how Gross wrapped up his column in favor of Obamacare:

So, to reiterate, we’re already half way toward fully socialized medicine. The government has already taken over one-twelfth of the economy—and more every day. That’s the status quo the opponents of reform are defending.

So close. Gross was within two words of getting it right. Had he concluded his analysis by observing “That’s the status quo proponents of reform are expanding,” he would have stumbled across a valid point. Note to Danny Gross: we’re not defending the status quo, that’s what we’re attacking.

Neither Daniel Gross nor I are economists or health-care professionals. I’m a chemist and Gross is a history major. The difference, I suppose, is that chemists are engaged in an empirical science in which results are measurable and which serves to define the direction of additional research designed to discover scientific truths. Gross has been trained in discipline that has, sadly, been transformed from a method of objective study into a means of justifying partisan posturing.

Americans instinctively shy away from government run healthcare because Americans realize that no institution is more inefficient and inept than government. The post office can’t compete with UPS and FedEx; a weatherization program can’t compete with the handyman down the street; and Obamacare could not compete against a truly free market healthcare system. That point should be blindingly obvious to everyone and, for the most part, it is – at least among those of us who don’t work in Washington, D.C., and sport a “D” behind our names.