Another way of saying it would be, eliminating solar subsidies would save taxpayers $billions and billions

Bloomberg: Tariffs on Chinese solar panels will cost taxpayers (an extra) $1.23 billion.

The U.S. offers incentives to encourage people to use clean energy, paying owners of solar-power systems a tax credit equal to 30 percent of the total installation costs. More expensive panels leads to higher costs, and that means taxpayers could be on the hook for about $1.23 billion more, according to an estimate from Cowen & Co. analyst Jeffrey Osborne.

That's just the cost of stopping the Chinese from dumping solar panels. $1.23 billion over and above what taxpayers are already paying. I can't find the total cost, but if an extra tariff will cost $1.23 in subsidies, how much are we already paying? Must be a lot.

In Adam Smith's world, we should be grateful to Chinese citizens subsidizing our solar program, but we no longer live in that world; our own subsidies have destroyed it.

The original subsidy, by the way, was limited to 2% of the cost. Congress raised it to 30%, with no cap, and I wonder which manufacturers were behind that move.