Should governments pick winners and losers by doing things like passing laws and tax credits boosting specific industries?
In general, I’m against subsidies to private industry. My testimony five times before Congress is against corporate welfare. Not only is it an unethical waste of taxpayer money, in general, it doesn’t even help the industry it goes to. Having said that, solar energy is very close to being at parity with power you buy at utilities, in certain situations. I’m talking about panels on your house. The subsidy the government gives is not going to the industry. The government, in effect, gives tax breaks and rebates to homeowners who want to put solar panels on their house. Therefore, they make the return-on-investment calculation. If you spend $20,000, your utility bill is going to pretty much vanish in California. If you want to look at the analogy in Japan, 12 years ago, the Japanese had a subsidy. Now Japan is one of the largest solar nations in the world. We’re behind them. You can look at the Japanese experience and say a finite subsidy to individuals launched the industry. Now it stand
