Ho hum... a million here, a million there. Who cares? It's only taxpayer money...

 

Elon Musk and D.O.G.E. are investigating current expenditures and recovering them wherever possible, but what about past expenditures that don't pass the smell test?  Here's one report that should make any taxpayer see red.

If the Biden administration’s green energy agenda were a bus, it would have no wheels, a dead battery, and a $160 million price tag. Enter Lion Electric, a Canadian electric school bus company that was handed nearly $160 million in taxpayer-funded subsidies—only to collapse into bankruptcy, leaving school districts across America high and dry​.

Now, watchdogs like EPA administrator Lee Zeldin are demanding answers, exposing yet another mismanaged, wasteful, and completely avoidable green energy failure.

As part of Biden’s $5 billion Clean School Bus program, Lion Electric was awarded $159 million to produce 435 electric buses. The administration touted it as a hallmark of its climate agenda, with Kamala Harris herself front and center, gushing over the initiative​.

Fast forward to today:

• Lion Electric has stopped manufacturing.
• It has laid off its workforce.
• It hasn’t delivered $95 million worth of promised buses to 55 school districts​.

. . .

Here’s the kicker: Lion Electric was in deep financial trouble long before Biden started funneling money into it.

Since 2020, the company has lost $301.6 million.

Its stock price has collapsed from $33.48 per share to just $0.08—a staggering 99.7% wipeout​.

It was hit with a class-action lawsuit after allegedly misleading investors with “grossly unrealistic financial projections”​.

And yet, the Biden administration kept the money flowing, rewarding a failing company because it fit the “green energy” narrative.

There's more at the link.

So . . . where's that $159 million?  Since no products were delivered in exchange for it, can the money be recovered from either the company, or its (presumably long-departed) executives?  Can their property be escheated or seized, and sold to recover some of the money?  What about the new factory the company built, which is now deserted and abandoned?  Can it be sold?

And what about the bureaucrats who approved that investment despite knowing - as they must surely have known - about the company's existing financial difficulties?  Malfeasance, perhaps?  That should be investigated with a fine-tooth comb.

As a taxpayer, I'm infuriated.  As an American, I'm disgusted that those who were supposed to lead and build up and support the country turn out to have done anything but that.

Peter