Show business

Remember, it only has to look like results.

The Energy Department said it has come up with $5 million to immediately restore jobs cut at a renewable energy laboratory President George W. Bush will visit on Tuesday, avoiding a potentially embarrassing moment as the president promotes his energy plan.
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The ensure the Colorado laboratory will have the people to carry out that research, the Energy Department transferred $5 million over the weekend to the Midwest Research Institute, the contractor that operates the renewable energy lab, to restore all the jobs cut earlier this month due to budget shortfalls.
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The Energy Department took the money from other accounts. The DOE said it will try to restore those funds by using money from several projects mandated by Congress in 2001 and 2002 "that have failed to make progress."

You mean like No Child Left Behind?

And if those funds can't be restored by piling more burden on the backs of the poor (you don't think they're going to fund this by raising the capital-gains tax, do you?), I guess those workers will just be laid off again -- quietly, after Bush has left town and taken the spotlight with him.

If the administration were serious about renewable energy and reducing dependence on Middle East oil, these positions would have been funded in the first place and their continued existence wouldn't be attributable to the happenstance of a Bush photo-op.