Big Losses For The Taxpayers Turn Into Big Wins For Obama’s Friends
In early 2011 private equity firms like Argonaut Ventures, which has close ties to Obama fundraiser George Kaiser who raised roughly $100,000 for the president in the last cycle, were given priority status in Solyndra’s loan restructuring agreement with Obama’s Department of Energy.
Solyndra, as we know now, has tanked but funds like Argonaut are still set to make out like bandits:
Argonaut Ventures I LLC—a private-equity fund linked to George Kaiser, a fundraiser for President Barack Obama—and Madrone Partners LP are set to pilot a reorganized shell company out of the wreckage of Solyndra, part of a Chapter 11 plan that promises scant repayment of a $528 million federal loan.
The reorganized shell company could be a vehicle to transform the money Solyndra lost in the solar-panel-manufacturing business, losses that total “significantly more than one-half billion dollars,” into future tax breaks for the private-equity firms, according to the DOE and IRS.
The Washington Free Beacon chimes in as well:
The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and Internal Revenue Service (IRS) wrote in a bankruptcy court filing last week that “Argonaut and Madrone could potentially use Solyndra’s net operating losses to avoid hundreds of millions of dollars of future income taxes.”
It’s nice to know that, even as the taxpayers get the short end of the stick, the President’s cronies are still going to come out of this debacle ahead of the game.
Tags: Barack Obama, george kaiser, solyndra
