Tag: Joseph Deckert

Oral Presentation

Conservatives cite the failure of a stimulus package loan to the (now-defunct) solar company Solyndra as one of president Obama’s administrational failures. The quality of regulation of the funds appropriated from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 is still up for debate. Solyndra LLC’s bankruptcy is a symptom of pervasive regulatory capture during the 2009 economic stimulus package. My research will explore the relationship between these allegations of administrative mishandling (command and control policy, rushed loans, and crony capitalism), and the phenomenon known as regulatory capture. In regulatory capture theory, government oversight favors industry insiders over free market principle of competition. My analysis shows that Solyndra’s subsidization was mishandled. The subsidization of the multiple sectors of the industry has to be carefully crafted in order to guarantee global market share for the United States. In Paul Boudreaux’s “Carrots and Sticks from Obama’s Solyndra and Beyond”, the law professor claims that regulatory failures created Solyndra’s bankruptcy. I respond by arguing that the failure of Solyndra is a broader sign of regulatory capture during the appropriation of funds from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009.