By John F. Di Leo -
While budgets should have been getting tighter for years now, some states, at least, are finally awakening to the need to watch their spending. Well, better late than never, right?
One example of this newfound awareness is the effort of some to reconsider our generous subsidies for solar panels, particularly the rooftop panels that one sees high atop single family homes across otherwise reasonable suburbs. Mississippi, Florida, and other states are in the news right now as they debate the question of rethinking the levels at which the taxpayer ought to subsidize the homeowner for this choice of dubious economic value.
It costs between $15,000 and $70,000 to install solar panels atop the roof of a normal single family home. Why the broad range? The pitch of the roof, the brand of the panels, the total square footage, and so forth. The prevailing wage of such installers varies widely across the country... and the relative value of the installation varies from side to side of the same street.
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