The debate over the wind industry’s key tax-credit—scheduled to expire at the end of the year—is heating up as the November election approaches. Mitt Romney has said that, if elected, he will let the credit expire. President Obama wants to extend it: In his speech at the Democratic National Convention last month, he declared, “thousands of Americans have jobs today building wind turbines.”

The Manhattan Institute just released the latest in its Issues 2012 series of policy briefs, “Subsidizing Big Wind: The Real Costs to Taxpayers.” Authored by MI senior fellow Robert Bryce, the report argues that wind-jobs are too expensive to be sustainable. If Big Wind can’t survive without federal subsidies, it doesn’t deserve to be in business.