By all accounts, Nevada has hitched its wagon to the sun and made a mighty fine show of it. The Silver State, once known chiefly for its silver and gambling dens, now boasts the second-highest solar electricity production in the nation—enough to make its neighboring states look like they’re still rubbing two sticks together to light a fire.
One out of every four electrons in Nevada is born from the desert sun, and as of 2024, solar is growing like a weed after a rainstorm, thanks in no small part to Washington’s generous hand. But here’s the rub–the hand that giveth is the taxpayer’s, and that hand is getting mighty tired.
Nevada’s solar boom didn’t come from pure grit or gumption. It came from Uncle Sam opening his wallet wide and emptying it into what ought to be a private enterprise. Through the Inflation Reduction Act—passed by one party while the other stood back and rolled its eyes—the federal government has lavished the solar industry with tax credits, subsidies, and grants as if it were a newborn baby needing swaddling.
These tax credits cover everything from manufacturing solar panels (45X) to installing them on suburban rooftops (25D) to helping companies build clean energy facilities (48E). The credits have made it so that companies hardly have to sell their wares the old-fashioned way—by earning their keep—but instead rely on tax breaks like a drunkard leaning on a lamppost, more for support than illumination.
Industry folks like Mr. Stephen Hamile of Las Vegas’s Sol-Up say, “Without the tax credit, those players in the market… would be unlikely to stay.”
If that ain’t a red flag, I don’t know what is. Imagine running a business that only survives because the government pays the tab. That’s not free enterprise; that’s a government-sponsored pageant.
With a Republican Congress sharpening its budgetary knife to carve $1.5 trillion from federal spending, the solar sector is sweating under the collar. And rightly so, as the tax credits weren’t supposed to be a lifelong pension. They were sold to the public to jumpstart clean energy, not to underwrite an industry indefinitely.
Supporters argue the tax credits build factories and create jobs, and that’s all fine and dandy until you realize those factories and jobs are on a shaky cliff of federal largesse. Let one Congress with a mind toward fiscal sanity come along, and poof.
There goes the whole edifice, like a sandcastle when the tide rolls in.
It gets worse. Even programs like Solar for All, which sounds noble on paper—helping low-income Nevadans harness the sun to slash their electric bills—are built on this same taxpayer-funded quicksand. Without 48E and 25D tax credits propping up the industry, the program would lose a third of its impact. That’s not a stable program; that’s a taxpayer-backed balloon, ready to deflate at the first sign of prudence.
Now, I’m all for innovation and clean energy. If Nevada can turn sunlight into prosperity, God bless’em. But let the sun do the heavy lifting, not the taxpayer. A business that needs perpetual subsidy is a charity in disguise, and the American people aren’t signing up for more donations—they’re asking for relief from the taxman.
Solar ought to stand on its own feet. Let it shine or sputter on the merit of its technology, its cost-efficiency, and its ability to serve the market—not on the whims of Washington’s political winds. When the government props up one industry over another, it’s not picking winners and losers. It’s just picking favorites—and sending the bill to the rest of us.
So if the sun is so mighty, let it pull its weight. Let the solar barons dig into their pockets instead of yours and mine.
Energy’s future ought to be bright—not because Washington says so–but because it works without Washington having to foot the bill.
The Old Blog in the Desert 
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