![](\"https:\/\/BradBlog.com\/Images\/WinnersLosers.jpg\")
In the continuing “fight” over the automatic billions in federal subsidies granted to fossil fuel companies each year, versus the begging and pleading for similar subsidies that the renewables industry is forced to go through year after year, the Republicans have come up with a nifty pretend argument: “The government shouldn’t be in the business of picking winners and losers!”<\/p>\n
Of course, government has always done exactly that, and continues to do so each and every year by rewarding fossil fuel company “winners” with federal subsidies, despite record profits for many of them year after year. And, naturally, Republicans continue to support the government helping out those “winners”.<\/p>\n
But in a recent discussion in comments around this topic, BRAD BLOG commenter “Sven O”<\/a> made a very good point over the weekend. It’s worth highlighting here for those who weren’t following the full thread<\/a>:<\/p>\n Yup. So do you Rightwingers (and self-proclaimed libertarians) who think you believe in “free markets” really<\/i> want such a market? I don’t think you really do. But let us know…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In the continuing “fight” over the automatic billions in federal subsidies granted to fossil fuel companies each year, versus the begging and pleading for similar subsidies that the renewables industry is forced to go through year after year, the Republicans have come up with a nifty pretend argument: “The government shouldn’t be in the business […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"ep_exclude_from_search":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[499,200,501,540,542,541],"tags":[],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-9861","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-coal","category-environment","category-nuclear-power","category-oil","category-solar","category-wind","bb-type-bradblog"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9861","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9861"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9861\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9861"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9861"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9861"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcoauthors&post=9861"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}About subsidies: All nuclear power plants would shut down immediately if their operators were required to have appropriate insurance coverage. All coal power plants would shut down immediately if people sick from dust emissions could sue the coal power plant operators appropriately for their failure to install proper emissions filters.<\/div>\n