Coyote Blog

Name the field:  Housing, education, health care.  In most any industry you can name, the sum of the government's interventions tend to subsidize demand and restrict supply.  In health care for example, programs like Medicaid, Obamacare, Medicare, and others subsidize demand while physician licensing, long drug approvals and prescription requirements, certificates of need, etc restrict supply.

If you are wondering why, it turns out that most government regulatory processes are captured by current incumbents, who work to get the government to subsidize customers to buy their product or service while simultaneously having the government block upstart competitors, either foreign or domestic.  For example in housing, existing homeowners form a powerful lobby that limits housing supply through restrictive zoning while demanding that the government subsidize mortgage interest (as well as low-cost mortgage programs) and give special tax treatment to capital gains from homes.   The result in every industry is supply shortages and rising prices.

Yesterday, we saw another classic example.  Federal, state and local governments have spent billions of dollars over the last decades subsidizing solar panel installations in homes and businesses.  But now, they are also simultaneously restricting the supply of solar panels:

President Donald Trump is once again burnishing his protectionist bona fides by slapping imported solar cells and washing machines with 30% tariffs - his most significant action taking aim at the world's second-largest economy since he ordered an investigation into Chinese IP practices that could result in tariffs.

Acting on recommendations from US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer, Trump imposed the sliding tariffs. Solar imports will face a 30% tarifffor the first year, then the tariff will decline to 15% by the fourth year.It also exempts the first 2.5 gigawatts of imported cells and modules, according to Bloomberg.

And... who would have guessed that Elon Musk would be on the receiving end of another government crony handout?  The patron saint of subsidy consumption will get yet another, as Tesla's solar city is currently building a large domestic panel manufacturing plant, an investment decision that makes little sense without tariff protection.