Cape Wind is an economic boondoggle
Taunton Daily Gazette, www.tauntongazette.com 20 February 2012
This letter is in response to the Feb. 16 article, “Utilities Agree to buy Cape Wind Power.” It appears that the commonwealth has again made a poor decision concerning green power. Cape Wind is an economic boondoggle. Let me get this right: Martha Coakley, the attorney general, stated an estimated savings of $217 million over four years. What makes her office a business economic decision group?
Here is the basic data. People and companies in this state pay an average of 12 cents per KWH for power. The Cape Wind project will furnish power at 27 cents per KWH and that does not include the subsidies and grants to build and maintain the project. Economics 101 says that you have increased your cost for power by 125 percent. Does this make businesses in the state more competitive? Does it allow you to buy more product and services for your home? Or are we going to squander more money like the $54 million for the defunct bankrupt solar company which our governor did.
So now the governor wants to cut the senior meals budget by 24 percent. Since when is state government qualified as a stock broker with other people’s money. If I want to invest, political ideology is not what I would use to base my decision on. Did the governor or attorney general invest any of their own money in this business? I think you‘ll find out they are a heck of a lot less political in their investment strategy? Do they use the higher tax rate for the state tax rate or are they like every one else and use the lower one?
This is an economic decision and not a political decision. Like all businesses, cost control is a key function to success or failure. To the average family, it takes money from discretionary to required for survival. The result is less to spend on other goods and slower economic growth.
Massachusetts is not a low cost state to manufacture or do business in and if you believe “Making It In Massachusetts” is going to save you in a competitive world, you’ll need more than your state attorney general and the governor to save your bacon. As competitive it is today, you can’t be sure where the tilting point is that makes companies un-competitive due to location. We can react too late to save our business and quality of life.
Frank Bigos
Swansea
URL to article: https://www.wind-watch.org/news/2012/02/20/cape-wind-is-an-economic-boondoggle/