No one is going to argue against funding schools, but the point of rebates and incentives on things like this (whether you’re rich or poor or live in a big house or small) is to get the ball rolling in a new industry. There is no question that ‘going green’ is beneficial to our national security and economic stability in the future, but the problem is that at the moment, the costs of doing so are too prohibitive for these types of upgrades to make sense for most (if not all) people.
The government has the capability to kick-start new industries such as this. It gets the ball rolling and contributes to the economies of scale. If 1000 people green their homes because it now makes economic sense to do so (thanks to incentives/rebates/subsidies), that’s 1000 new people buying parts and labor in a new industry that otherwise would not be doing so. It is a shot in the arm – giving the industry some ‘roids!
Now I know your argument is “well he’s rich he can afford it himself.” That may be true, but perhaps he’d rather spend his money on yachts and Ferraris and world travel.. who knows. But maybe the incentives are what tipped the scale towards him spending his millions on a case study that will benefit the future of this country rather than blowing it on superlative things. Furthermore, it doesn’t matter who is greening their homes — the bottom line is that he will be purchasing parts and equipment from an industry in its infancy. This helps keep these new companies alive and engineers employed — the ones who will be bringing along the next steps in technological improvements that will ultimately lead to the energy independence this country so badly needs.
Lets try another analogy – the Internets! Are you going to tell me that the government shouldn’t have spent taxpayer money investing in the research, development, and deployment of what we now call the Internet? When the Internets first came out, it was prohibitively expensive for most places to have a direct connection, which is why universities and research facilities got them first – at the expense of the taxpayers in the form of incentives/rebates/subsidies/grants/etc. Could these places have afforded this research themselves? Perhaps, but the government assistance surely sped the process up.
Buttler, you wouldn’t even have a message board to rant on if it wasn’t for the government’s (and therefore the taxpayers’) direct funding of the industry.
Besides, some day schools will be able to leverage the technology that early adopters such as Dreyfuss are deploying to save money on their energy bills. Long-term, things like this will directly benefit schools. It’s a win-win.
