The Washington Post might be a day late and $38 billion short, but it's being honest about Barack Obama's failed green jobs program. According to the Post, the "$38.6 billion loan guarantee program" [1] has created just "3,545 new, permanent jobs" "after giving out almost half the allocated amount."
For those not doing the math at home, that means more than $5 million per job.
The Post outlined Obama administration promises to "create or save 65,000 jobs" in the green jobs category. What it left out was that, while campaigning, Obama promised to create 5 million "green" jobs. He's about 4,996,455 short.
The green jobs program has come under scrutiny following "the collapse of Solyndra, a solar-panel maker whose closure could leave taxpayers on the hook for as much as $527 million."
According to the Post, the White House won't even admit it's failing. "The Energy Department says that the green-jobs program is still on track to meet its employment goals. It claims credit for saving 33,000 jobs at Ford Motor Co. - about half of the Detroit automaker's entire hourly and salaried U.S. workforce."
At least, however, the Post is reporting it. The broadcast networks are not [2]. The Business & Media Institute analyzed the results of a Nexis search for the term "green jobs" and found only 4 stories out of 52 (roughly 8 percent) between Jan. 17, 2009, and Aug. 17, 2011, included any criticism. That means 92 percent had no criticism. An additional 10 stories focused on Obama's former green jobs "czar" Van Jones resignation (because of his 9/11 Truther views) were excluded from the analysis.
However, since that time, ABC [3] has covered the story in detail.