> Some might argue this is the exact nature of government subsidies.
I'm not sure why that's bad though. It's true it'd be nice if US science was unfettered by the constant funding-directed pressure to find novel ways to kill people (or support folks doing said killing), but it is true that it spurs research in a variety of areas.
> Either solar needs to be the most cost effective solution for their energy needs, or the government needs to artificially inflate the cost of other energy (or reduce any subsidies to other energy to make solar more competitive).
Solar's receiving less subsidy than most other forms of energy. The oil industry, in particular, receives massive subsidies (and military interventions abroad in some cases) and the current US government heavily favors the coal industry (which already receives a lot of monetary subsidy as well). SolarCity being somewhat unethical in defrauding sales is not unique to, you know, a subsidized business. It's a consequence of any insufficiently regulated industry where the penalty for fraud is less than the profit of fraud. It's a fundamental feature of capitalism when untethered from objective assessments of value.
> People are always going to make choices in their economic self-interest.
I hope people understand that this is actually a religious point, not a scientific one. The science says quite the opposite.