Just before Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) started their ongoing series of rallies against Elon Musk and President Donald Trump, Sanders stopped by Face the Nation on CBS and hilariously exclaimed in feigned outrage:
“We’re looking at a rapid growth of oligarchy. We’re looking at a rapid growth of authoritarianism. And I fear that we’re looking at a rapid growth of kleptocracy as well. And I’m going to do everything I can to work with my supporters all over this country to stand up and fight back to make sure we have an economy that works for everybody, not just Elon Musk.”
All I could do is laugh, as Bernie Sanders specifically and the other Democrats generally are the ones who made the economy work so well for Elon Musk.
The $465 million Energy Department loan under President Barack Obama that saved Tesla from bankruptcy in 2010 emerged from the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007, which was adopted because Bernie Sanders and all the Democrats in the Senate voted for it (except Debbie Stabenow and a half-dozen conservative Republicans). Further, Obama’s American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (which all the Senate Democrats voted for, including Bernie Sanders) included the $7500/EV subsidy that put $1.5 billion in Elon’s wallet. Nearly all Republicans voted against it.
And Musk’s Tesla gains more $1 billion dollars annually from carbon tax credits passed by Democrats in California in first decade of the century and was expanded by President Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 (which Sanders and all Democrats passed on a party-line vote in the Senate, and AOC and her Democratic colleagues voted for in the House).
Call it an own goal, if you will, but Sanders and AOL are providing a belly full of laughs by going after Musk. There are a lot of others in the same boat as Musk, a boat created by the bureaucracy and the politicians to push their agendas. Now to b.tch and moan about it is really rich and good for a deep belly laugh.