What’s the number one antidote to child poverty in America? Marriage.

The truth is that children born to married-parent families are 82 percent less likely to live in poverty. The most effective weapon against child poverty is within our reach.

Last week during the second presidential debate, former Governor Mitt Romney encouraged Americans to consider marriage before children:

“I’ll tell you, it is a huge advantage to have a mom and a dad that can share the financial resources to help their kids, work in the home to help each child with a little time devoted to each child.”

It’s true. As research shows, children raised in intact families are less likely to engage in delinquent behavior and are protected from a variety of other negative outcomes.

Unfortunately, unwed childbearing is at an all-time high. Over 40 percent of children are born to single women today.

Statistics show that 71 percent of children living in poor families do not have married parents. It is imperative that government begin taking active steps to strengthen marriage – which is crucial for America’s prosperity in the next generation.

Vezi sursa articolului aici.

Obamacare includes many disastrous consequences for America’s health care system. Contributing to the impending mess are these 10 provisions that clearly elude common sense.

1. Expanding a program that one in three doctors won’t accept. Obamacare expands a broken Medicaid program that already faces a severe access problem: One out of three Medicaid doctors will not accept new Medicaid patients. If the Obama Administration has its way and every state expands Medicaid, 17 million Americans will be added to the rolls-5.6 million of whom will join the other Medicaid patients who can’t find a doctor.
2. Giving Medicaid doctors a pay raise-for two years. Obamacare increases the payment rate for Medicaid primary care doctors up to Medicare payment levels in 2013 and 2014. After those two years, Medicaid doctors will face about a 22 percent payment cut.
3. Giving more government money to low-income Americans in the exchanges than to those in Medicaid. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that every low-income individual who chooses to enroll in the new exchanges instead of Medicaid will increase federal spending by roughly $3,000 in 2022, because exchange subsidies will be more generous than the cost of coverage in Medicaid.
4. Using Medicare money to pay for Obamacare. Medicare’s finances are in serious trouble, facing a long-term unfunded obligation of $37 trillion and a bankrupt trust fund by 2024. Despite these facts, Obamacare cuts Medicare by $716 billion and then uses that money to pay for new spending rather than putting the money back into a struggling Medicare program.
5. Forcing religious organizations to provide birth control coverage. The Obama Administration refuses to exempt all religious employers from its mandate to provide coverage and pay for contraception, sterilization, and abortion-inducing drugs despite religious or moral objections to doing so.
6. Spending $1.68 trillion on a health care law that will leave 30 million Americans uninsured. Obamacare’s coverage expansion provisions alone will cost $1.68 trillion over the next 10 years, but even after all that additional health spending, 30 million Americans will be uninsured.
7. Overpricing premiums for young adults-so the government can subsidize them. Obamacare’s age rating system forces insurers to charge unnaturally high premiums for younger adults. This will result in more subsidies going to healthy young people in the exchanges than would otherwise be necessary if insurers were allowed to continue charging lower premiums that more accurately reflect younger adults’ lower health care costs.
8. Fixed revenue from a tax. Obamacare’s annual fee on health insurers acts like a traditional excise tax-with one unique difference: The revenue collected from the fee will be fixed in any given year, meaning the amount going to the government will remain the same with no relation to how many consumers are actually purchasing coverage, totaling over $100 billion from 2014–2022. Thus, the fewer people that buy insurance, the higher the tax rate will be for those who do.
9. Obamacare gives $3.8 billion to fund CO-OPs-an insurer that is designed to fail. It is uncertain whether any CO-OP insurers will actually be created, because there is no obvious market demand, the statute imposes restrictions that make it difficult to establish and operate one, and the law prohibits the most likely and sensible path to setting one up-a divestiture or conversion by an existing health insurer.
10. Obamacare has two types of health exchanges-the law just didn’t describe the second one. It includes the American Health Benefit (AHB) and Small Business Health Options Program (SHOP). For the AHB exchange, the law contains requirements for structure, functions, and operations. The law provides no such detail for the SHOP exchange, and thus it is irrelevant-yet it’s in the law.

Finally, creating a new entitlement when America’s existing entitlements (Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security) are in desperate need of reform, and the country is running annual trillion-dollar budget deficits, doesn’t make much sense.

Vezi sursa articolului aici.

President Obama is putting off major environmental regulations until after the November elections in order to avoid the political blowback of the economic damage those regulations will cause, according to a new Senate report.

Environmental regulators in the Obama administration “don’t want this economic pain to hit American families just before the election because it would cost President Obama votes,” states the report, released by Environment and Public Works ranking member Jim Inhofe (R-OK) on Thursday, “so they have simply decided to punt, intending to move full speed ahead if they gain a second term.”

The report lists a number of major environmental regulations that are either in their nascent stages or have yet to be implemented. Collectively, those regulations “will destroy millions of American jobs and cause energy prices to skyrocket even more,” Inhofe said in a news release accompanying the report.

The decision to delay implementation of these rules is part of what the New York Times called a “new calculus on political and policy shifts as the White House sharpens its focus on the president’s re-election.”

Tensions between the White House and top environmental regulators flared when the president announced he would delay an EPA rule on ozone emissions until after the election. EPA chief Lisa Jackson was livid, but the president assured her that he would move forward with the rule after the election.

Inhofe’s report presents that decision as part of a coordinated strategy to achieve punitive environmental regulations without suffering significant setbacks at the ballot box. Read the full report here:

Vezi sursa articolului aici.

The disgraceful firing of Radio Liberty‘s loyal Moscow staff on September 20 and 21 is the latest chapter in the Obama’s Administration’s Russia policy retreat, also known as the “reset.”

Forty-one dedicated and professional reporters with deep knowledge of Russia-and in particular its human rights record-have been given their marching papers by the U.S.government.

Allegedly, this is because Russian media law is changing on November 10 to restrict AM broadcasting. But those who follow the Obama Administration’s Russia policy will see a familiar pattern. As the Russian government and media get more aggressive and more anti-American, the U.S. meekly retreats.

While the new Russian media law certainly does make the work of broadcasting more challenging, it is also a fact that Radio Liberty’s mission-to broadcast the truth and promote democracy-fits ill with President Obama’s accommodationist Russia policy.

The “reset” policy was of course launched by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton with the presentation of a large red button to Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov during her first year in office. This silly gimmick proved prophetic of the ineptitude of the policy it symbolizes.

Under the “reset,” American national interests and those of its friends and allies have endured one setback vis-à-vis Russia after another:

• First to fall by the wayside was the ballistic missile defense system agreed to under President Bush with the governments of Poland and the Czech Republic.
• Second was the U.S.nuclear stockpile, which the Obama Administration voluntarily cut in the process of the New START negotiations with Russia.
• Then followed the withdrawal of U.S. support for NATO membership action plans for Georgia and Ukraine, which had been standing policy under the Bush Administration.
• Last spring, President Obama promised then-President Dmitry Medvedev (and was caught by an open microphone), “After my election I will have more flexibility” to negotiate nuclear cuts.
  • On September 20 and 21, the staff of Radio Liberty inMoscow was decimated.
  • On October 1, the offices of USAID in Moscow were closed without a peep of protests due to pressure from the Russian government, which accused the U.S. of domestic political interference.

Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty director Steven Korn attempted to defend the firings in an op-ed in yesterday’s Moscow Times. “This is not a calamity,” he wrote, which certainly is not the view of the fired journalists. “On the contrary, we see this as an opportunity to improve and strengthen Radio Svoboda and to accelerate our plans to move to digital platforms.” This simply does not pass the smell test, especially as the entire digital team of the Moscow office was among those fired.

U.S. national interests abroad, including our security interests, continue to be compromised by the Obama Administration, andRussia is but one example. The worst part is that it is being done intentionally.

Vezi sursa articolului aici.

At last night’s presidential debate, undecided voter Kerry Ladka questioned President Obama about the terrorist attack in Libya and security for Americans in Benghazi. The ensuing exchange resulted in one of the most memorable moments of the evening.

With many Americans seeking answers about the killing of Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans on September 11, Obama once again failed to explain why it took his Administration so long to acknowledge the attack was an act of terrorism. Heritage’s video, released last week, chronicles the Administration’s changing story after the attack.

Heritage’s James Jay Carafano commented last night:

What did the Administration do about security before the attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, and how did it respond afterward? It was the question that the President never clearly and explicitly responded to. When it comes to how the White House responded to the attack, the Administration has a lot of explaining to do. Its series of explanations was muddled and misleading.

>> The 5 Most Misleading Statements from the Second Presidential Debate

Evidence shows there were security threats in Benghazi in the months prior to the deadly September 11 terrorist attack. Despite these threats, the Obama Administration and State Department left its personnel there to fend for themselves.

To help our readers follow the path to tragedy on September 11 and its aftermath, Heritage’s Helle Dale has put together a chronology of key events since the attack.

Vezi sursa articolului aici.

In an outrage destined for the history books, the moderator of last night’s hotly contested presidential debate lied about President Obama’s deadly bungling in Libya after Obama overtly asked her on live television to do so.

It was truly unprecedented and could only have happened in the Age of Obama.

During the town hall-format debate with an audience of undecided voters, Crowley provided an assist to Obama to help him perpetuate his administration’s ongoing cover-up about the murder of four Americans –including the U.S. ambassador- at the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya, this past Sept. 11. Reports indicate that Ambassador Chris Stevens and other officials were provided inadequate security in a particularly hostile part of Libya.

Hours before the debate Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, sent to Lima, Peru, by Obama’s campaign to make her inaccessible, said it was her responsibility to provide security for America’s diplomatic personnel. But that was as close to a mea culpa as Clinton was willing to come.

“In the wake of an attack like this, in the fog of war, there’s always going to be confusion,” she said. That fog can be especially difficult to navigate when both the White House and Foggy Bottom are run by mendacity-loving Saul Alinsky-worshipers, but I digress.

During the debate GOP candidate Mitt Romney stated –correctly- that “it took the president 14 days before he called the attack in Benghazi an act of terror.” Romney’s supporters have been saying for weeks that Obama didn’t want to label the assault on the U.S. mission a terrorist attack because to do so would be an admission that the administration’s foreign policy was in flames.

After Romney’s statement Obama interjected, “Get the transcript,” like an eager contestant asking for a lifeline on “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?”

At that cue Crowley cut off Romney, claiming that Obama had in fact called the attack an “act of terror” around the time it took place. Buoyed by Crowley’s compliance, Obama boasted, “Can you say that a little louder, Candy?”

“He did call it an act of terror,” she said of the president. “It did as well take – it did as well take two weeks or so for the whole idea there being a riot out there about this tape to come out. You [Romney] are correct about that.”

Crowley, it should be noted, is a more polite, more personable version of Martha Raddatz, the pretended moderator who tag-teamed Paul Ryan with smilin’ Joe Biden last week. This makes Crowley more dangerous than Raddatz, who was arguably more obnoxious than outright opinionated in her conduct during the vice presidential debate.

Crowley also happens to be dead wrong.

In the White House’s Rose Garden on Sept. 12, Obama suggested that an anti-Islam video had provoked the attack. He then offered a throw-away line, making a general statement that “no acts of terror would shake the resolve of this great nation.” Obama said what happened in Benghazi was “a terrible act” and promised that “justice will be done.” At no time did he say the events in Benghazi were instigated by terrorists.

Over the following two weeks, the Obama administration continued to resist calling the events in Benghazi a terrorist attack. On five different Sunday morning TV talk shows, Susan Rice, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, said the attack in that Libyan city stemmed from violent protests related to a “heinous and offensive” video.

On Sept. 25, Obama again refused to label the attack an act of terrorism during a softball appearance on TV’s “The View,” saying that an investigation was still ongoing. He said the same thing later the same day during an address at the United Nations, blaming the violence in Libya on the video and making the much-ridiculed assertion that “The future must not belong to those who slander the prophet of Islam.”

After the debate, an unapologetic Crowley jovially admitted on CNN that Romney was correct but blamed her victim, the former Massachusetts governor, for the sin of linguistic imprecision.

Well, you know, again, I’d heard the president’s speech at the time. I sort of re-read a lot of stuff about Libya because I knew we’d probably get a Libya question, so I kind of wanted to be up on it. So we knew that the president had, had said, you know, these acts of terrors [sic] won’t stand or whatever the whole quote was and I think actually, you know, because, right after that I did turn around and say but you are totally correct, that they spent two weeks telling us that this was about a tape and that there was a, you know, this riot right outside the Benghazi consulate, which there wasn’t. So he was right in the main but I just think he picked the wrong word.

No, Candy, Romney didn’t pick the wrong word. The Commission on Presidential Debates picked the wrong moderator.

But the damage, which may or may not be long-lasting, is now done and the debate is finished. Just another day in the mainstream media.

Former New Hampshire governor and Romney surrogate John Sununu excoriated Crowley on the Fox News Channel. “Candy Crowley had no business doing a real-time, if you will, fact check, because she was wrong,” he said. Crowley aided President Obama who “was absolutely deliberate in his dishonesty on this issue of whether it was terrorism.”

The Obama administration’s failure to provide security in Benghazi, an act that led to the death of four Americans, is “unconscionable,” Sununu said.

Commentator Charles Krauthammer skewered Obama for being “completely at sea,” and not even trying to answer the question about consulate security. Obama acted offended at suggestions he would mislead the American people, Krauthammer said, even though he put his U.N. ambassador on television to lie to the public about what transpired in Benghazi.

Romney missed “a huge opening” to pound Obama over consulate security, Krauthammer opined. Of course if there was a genuine opportunity Romney missed, it’s because he was too busy defending himself after Crowley effectively called him a liar.

Despite the standoff on Benghazi, Romney acquitted himself well.

He repeated his winning phrase, “trickle down government,” to refer to Obama’s unshakable belief that all will be well if government continues to grow in size and scope.

He explained that it was important to bringing tax rates down because it makes it easier for small businesses to hire new employees and he hit Obama over the weak economy and skyrocketing growth in dependency on government.

“We don’t have to live like this,” Romney said.

Yesterday’s debate, which took place at Hofstra University in Hempstead, N.Y., came after the Oct. 3 presidential debate in which Romney gave Obama the thrashing of his political career. It also came after Vice President Joe Biden’s unprecedented 85 interruptions of GOP challenger Paul Ryan in the Oct. 11 vice presidential debate.

On Fox News Channel pollster Frank Luntz’s focus group of maybe 20 now-undecided voters who voted for Obama in 2008 was harshly critical of Obama.

In a moment of candor that slipped past network censors, one man said Obama’s been “bullshitting” the public. The focus group members agreed and even seemed angry at the president, blaming him for mismanaging the economy and praising Romney’s experience creating jobs in the private sector.

In a development that ought to make left-wingers heads’ explode, even the focus group on ultra-liberal MSNBC swung for Romney.

Meanwhile, Obama has been getting a steady stream of bad news lately on the polling front.

A devastating Gallup poll released yesterday showed that Romney had the support of an impressive 50 percent of likely voters compared to Obama’s 46 percent. The poll consisted of responses from a large sample, in this case of 2,723 likely voters, all interviewed after Obama was annihilated by Romney in the Oct. 3 debate in Denver.

Even the staid statisticians at Gallup acknowledge that even though “debates are rarely transformative events in presidential elections,” Obama “has lost ground with voters since the start of the month, most likely reflecting his poorly reviewed performance in the first presidential debate.”

In recent months maybe, just maybe, the polls weren’t necessarily wrong. Perhaps they reflected voter ambivalence. Americans were open to the possibility of firing Obama but they weren’t yet sold on Romney.

When the endless parade of progressive pundits argued in the last few months that Obama was such an inspirational figure that mundane issues like national security and the economy no longer mattered to voters, it turns out they were projecting, not commenting.

Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: Click here.

Vezi sursa articolului aici.

Exotic dancers, robotic squirrels, and a reality TV show in India-your tax dollars supported all of these this year.

Two reports just released-“Federal Spending by the Numbers 2012” by The Heritage Foundation and “Waste Book 2012,” a report by the office of Senator Tom Coburn (R–OK)-shed light on these and other examples of Washington’s irresponsible spending.

If you value your tax dollars, you’re sure to be outraged by these wasteful projects. Following are the top 10 examples, five from each report. Though not necessarily the biggest ticket items, they are no doubt wasteful and representative of Washington’s spending addiction that must end.

Federal Spending by the Numbers 2012:

1. A reality TV show in India. The Department of Agriculture’s Market Access Program spends $200 million a year to help U.S. agricultural trade associations and cooperatives advertise their products in foreign markets. In 2011, it funded a reality TV show in India that advertised U.S. cotton.
2. Studying pig poop. The Environmental Protection Agency awarded a $141,450 grant under the Clean Air Act to fund a Chinese study on swine manure and a $1.2 million grant to the United Nations for clean fuel promotion.
3. Amtrak snacks. Federally subsidized Amtrak lost $84.5 million on its food and beverage services in 2011 and $833.8 million over the past 10 years. It has never broken even on these services.
4. Using military exercises to boost biofuels. The U.S. Navy bought 450,000 gallons of biofuels for $12 million-or almost $27 per gallon-to conduct exercises to showcase the fuel and bring it closer toward commercialization. It is the largest biofuel purchase ever made by the government.
5. Conferences for government employees. In 2008 and 2009 alone, the Department of Justice spent $121 million to host or participate in 1,832 conferences.

Waste Book 2012:

1. “RoboSquirrel.” $325,000 was spent on a robotic squirrel named “RoboSquirrel.” This National Science Foundation grant was used to create a realistic-looking robotic squirrel for the purpose of studying how a rattlesnake would react to it.
2. Cupcakes. In Washington, D.C., and elsewhere across the country, cupcake shops are trending. The 10 cupcake shop owners who received $2 million in Small Business Administration loan guarantees, however, can only boast so much of their entrepreneurial ingenuity, since taxpayers are backing them up.
3. Food stamps for alcohol and junk food. Though they were intended to ensure hungry children received healthy meals, taxpayer-funded food stamps were instead spent on fast food at Taco Bell and Burger King; on non-nutritious foods such as candy, ice cream, and soft drinks; and on some 2,000 deceased persons in New York and Massachusetts. Food stamp recipients spent $2 billion on sugary drinks alone. Improper SNAP payments accounted for $2.5 billion in waste, including to one exotic dancer who was making $85,000 per year.
4. Beer brewing in New Hampshire. Despite Smuttynose brewery’s financial success and popularity, it is still getting a $750,970 Community Development Block Grant to build a new brewery and restaurant facilities.
5. A covered bridge to nowhere. What list of government waste would be complete without a notorious “bridge to nowhere”? In this case, it’s $520,000 to fix the Stevenson Road Covered Bridge in Green County, Ohio, which was last used in 2003.

Some of this waste hardly amounts to a rounding error by current federal budget standards. However, no spending cut is too small. Congress should root out even small instances of waste. Doing so will build momentum for it to tackle difficult, long-term budget challenges, such as entitlement program reform.

Fiscal year 2012 is the fourth consecutive year with a trillion-dollar-plus deficit. Total federal debt has surpassed $16 trillion. Federal spending reached $3.6 trillion-or 22.9 percent as a share of the economy-in 2012. Despite these frightening figures, which are on track to worsen, Congress continues to expand government.

Wasteful spending is intrinsic in big government, because government is concerned primarily with getting checks out the door and only secondarily with spending the money properly.

As both “Federal Spending by the Numbers 2012” and “Waste Book 2012” warn, it is long past time for Congress to put the brakes on this wasteful spending-full stop.

Vezi sursa articolului aici.

Calls to spend more on teachers are likely to come up in tonight’s debate. More likely still, we’ll hear accusations that Governor Mitt Romney wants to slash education spending by 20 percent.

This figure is a reference to the House of Representatives-approved budget, authored by House Budget Committee chairman Paul Ryan, which aims to trim non-defense discretionary spending but does not specify cuts to K-12 education.

While the House-approved budget does not specify a 20 percent reduction in federal education spending, such a move would be wise. The American public education system has shown no improvement despite a near tripling of federal spending since the 1960s.

President Obama wants to aggressively increase the amount of money taxpayers spend on Washington education programs. Specifically, he has been trying to sell the notion that the federal government must spend more taxpayer dollars to fund education jobs and that failing to do so will result in fewer teachers in the nation’s public schools.

This campaign began in earnest with the so-called stimulus in 2009, which gifted a one-time bonus of nearly $100 billion to the Department of Education. The Administration states that “approximately 275,000 education jobs, such as teachers, principals, librarians, and counselors, were saved or created with this funding.”

On the heels of that historic infusion of cash, a year later, in 2010, the Administration pushed, and Congress passed, the Education Jobs Fund-a $10 billion public education bailout-in order to “save or create education jobs for the 2010-2011 school year.” Education Secretary Arne Duncan argued that the funding would “enable schools to keep an estimated 160,000 or more education jobs.”

And now, as part of his “Education Blueprint,” President Obama has put forward a breathtaking proposal to spend another $25 billion “to provide support for hundreds of thousands of education jobs.”

Aside from constitutional issues involving federal pay for education employees, spending billions of taxpayer dollars through Washington to prevent public school layoffs are unwise and unnecessary.

The White House often conflates education jobs with teaching positions, leaving the impression that reductions in staff rolls in the public education system will necessarily lead to fewer teachers in the classroom. While many school districts face potential staff reductions, the growth in non-teaching staff over the past five decades should inform decisions about education staffing and spending.

Teaching and non-teaching staff positions in public schools across the country have increased at far greater rates than student enrollment over the past four decades. From 1970 to 2010, student enrollment increased by a modest 7.8 percent, while the number of public-school teachers increased by 60 percent. During the same time, non-teaching staff positions increased by 138 percent, and total staffing grew by 84 percent. Teachers now comprise just half of all public education employees.

If school districts are cash poor, they should trim non-teaching staff positions-there is ample room. Removing federal red tape would help in such an effort, as a non-trivial number of administrative positions are the result of the bureaucratic compliance burden associated with the operation of federal education programs.

Vezi sursa articolului aici.

A123, recipient of a $249 million Department of Energy manufacturing grant, warned of impending debt default and cash problems that forced the company to seek bankruptcy protection.

With 14 straight quarterly losses–nearly $83 million in 2nd Quarter 2012 and $125 million in the previous quarter, on top of $258 million in 2011, reported here on Scribe, the company hoped to change its fortunes with an infusion of investor cash from China.

An August “memorandum of understanding” between A123 and Chinese auto manufacturer Wanxiang promised $450 million in debt bailout and other cash incentives that would grant the Chinese company an 80 percent interest in A123.

The potential strategic partnership between the two companies failed to materialize.

President Barack Obama praised the company in 2010:

President Barack Obama called A123 Chief Executive Officer David Vieau and then-Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm during a September 2010 event celebrating the opening of the plant in Livonia, Michigan, that the company received the U.S. grant to help build.

“This is about the birth of an entire new industry in America – an industry that’s going to be central to the next generation of cars,” Obama said in the phone call, according to a transcript provided by the White House. “When folks lift up their hoods on the cars of the future, I want them to see engines and batteries that are stamped: Made in America.”

Just yesterday, Bloomberg reported the company’s lack of cash:

A123 Systems Inc. (AONE), the maker of lithium-ion batteries for electric cars, said it may run out of cash to fund operations and may need to seek bankruptcy protection.

A123 expects to be in default under material debt agreements today, the Waltham, Massachusetts-based company said yesterday in a regulatory filing. A123 didn’t expect to be on time with an interest payment due yesterday on $143.8 million of notes expiring in 2016, or to make a payment due yesterday on $2.76 million in outstanding 6 percent notes, according to the filing.

“The company may not have sufficient cash to fund operations and may need to seek the protections provided under the U.S. Bankruptcy Code,” A123 said. “No assurance can be given that the company will be able to avoid restructuring, reorganization, or a bankruptcy filing.”

Bloomberg could not confirm Wanxiang’s position, with a number of calls to the company going unanswered.

A123 admitted its inability to continue as a “going concern” unless it is able to find cash, and fast. The company was “considering strategic alternatives including ‘one or more potential transactions’ to address its liquidity problems. There is ‘no assurance’ that A123 will be able to find a way to continue to operate its business as a going concern,” Bloomberg reported

A123′s position as a leading green battery supplier for auto companies like plug-in hybrid manufacturer Fisker Karma suffered from product recalls. Fisker itself had its own $529 million DOE loan guarantee halted early in 2012.

A123 received half of the DOE Electric Drive Battery and Manufacturing Initiative grant through June 2012, as well as extensions of production goals. The company also claimed an additional $14 million in other DOE research and development grants.

In May, A123 withdrew a $233 million loan application to the DOE for its Advanced Technology Vehicles Manufacturing program, claiming that the ATVM loan was unnecessary at the time.

However, A123 admitted its cash burn rate–from $113.1 million to $47.7 million by 2nd Quarter 2012–as a direct statement on the company’s continued viability:

The above circumstances raise substantial doubt on the Company’s ability to continue as a going concern. Management is taking actions to raise additional capital to fund cash requirements and evaluating other strategic alternatives. The Company is actively engaged in discussions with strategic partners for substantial investments in the Company… Management also continues to seek to reduce cash used in operating and investing activities, including by improving the Company’s gross margins, reducing operating expenses, and reducing working capital. Although the Company’s intent is to improve its operating efficiencies and to obtain additional financing, there is no assurance that the Company will be able to obtain such financing on favorable terms, if at all, or to successfully further reduce costs in such a way that would continue to allow the Company to operate its business.

Vezi sursa articolului aici.