Green Manufacturing Boom Will Lead to Dangerous Bust
April 28, 2023
COMMENTARY BY
Jack Spencer
Jack Spencer is a senior research fellow for energy and environmental policy at The Heritage Foundation.
“America is Back in the Factory Business” declared a recent Wall Street Journal headline.
On its face, this should be good news. Investments in expanding manufacturing capacity are a sure sign of a strong economy. Moreover, bringing more manufacturing back to the United States is a good way to mitigate the risks to America’s global supply chains that COVID-19 exposed—or more accurately, the risks exposed by governments’ response to COVID-19.
But not so fast.
A closer look at the economy tells us that something very different is afoot. This industrial expansion is not the result of strong economic fundamentals but rather is a response to the Biden administration’s massive taxpayer-funded subsidies for so-called green energy. In other words, American companies are not investing capital because they are optimistic about the economy or because they see consumer demand for certain products increasing but because the government is paying them with taxpayer money to do so.
Like so much of the Biden agenda, this so-called manufacturing boom is full of hot air.
And it is about to get worse.
https://www.dailysignal.com/2023/04/28/green-manufacturing-boom-will-lead-to-dangerous-bust/