Soak the Rich: General Electric

Though General Electric CEO Jeffrey Immelt holds the dubious title “Barack Obama’s Favorite Businessman,” GE is too big a corporation to go un-soaked. For every unmarketable green-energy product GE peddles to federal bureaucrats, there’s another bad, profitable wing of the company. On behalf of Senator Sherrod Brown, let’s help Washington’s favorite conglomerate spread those profits around!

Remember the pit we’re working to fill: an estimated 2011 deficit of $1.62 trillion. Fiscal wizards Sherrod Brown and Barack Obama have made it clear that revenue – not spending – is to blame, and “revenue” in government-speak means “taxes.” As wealthy Democrats have told us time and again, it’s easy to bring in enough revenue if you merely start with The Rich!

Now Soaking: General Electric

• CEO Jeffrey Immelt’s compensation is listed as $7.69 million. Immelt has been an officer on the GE board since 1989, so he’s got more than enough money. His $7,690,000 will help fund entitlements and porky make-work programs.
• GE’s income statement lists $1,050,000,000 in income taxes for 2010. That isn’t nearly enough (recent news stories describe the actual outlay as even less), so let’s go ahead and double it. An extra $1.05 billion from GE will help Sherrod Brown and Barack Obama continue the Keynesian spending that has been so successful these past few years.
• GE’s new contributions will reduce the $1,620,000,000,000 deficit to $1,618,942,310,000 – a shadow of its former self!

Not to worry: doubling GE’s income taxes won’t cause undue harm to the corporation’s 287,000 employees or the holders of its 10.6 billion outstanding shares of common stock. It also won’t increase the price of any of the products GE helps design, build, or deliver. We, The People who support Sherrod Brown’s fiscal policies, hold these leftist conceits to be self-evident.

As General Electric seems eager to prove, crony capitalism is a racket all politicians can take part in – which wouldn’t be so bad, except for the capitalism part. When Washington picks marketplace winners and losers, there are still losers. But when leaders like Sherrod Brown get involved in tax policy and act as if markets don’t exist, everybody wins!

Full disclosure: I was a GE stockholder until I sold my shares (at a considerable loss) after last month’s dividend payout. Crony capitalism ultimately outweighed conglomerate hedging in my book.

Cross-posted at that hero.