Dethroning Jeffrey Immelt: What is good for GE isn’t good for America

 

Last week, President Obama appointed General Electric’s CEO, Jeffrey Immelt, to head his Council on Competitiveness and Jobs. An Immelt appointment is an obvious rent seeking arrangement between Big Government and Big Business. This could not have been a more clear product of a crony corporatist relationship, and it is one that has no place in government that professes to value the free market. So now, we fight it.

Matt Kibbe of FreedomWorks sums it up well:

“It’s time to break up the unethical romance between government and big business. For too long, corporate elites have lobbied to profit from the size and growth of government at the expense of hard-working Americans. We’re here to let President Obama and Jeffrey Immelt know that the days of easy money through backroom deals are over.”

Jeffrey Immelt has been unapologetic about using the government to grow his corporation. The L.A. Times reminds us that last year Immelt was quoted in the Atlantic saying that he wants GE and government to work “in concert,” claiming that it didn’t make him a “traitor” or a “bad guy”… just “practical that that’s gotta happen.”

This kind of thinking is exactly what got us into trouble in the first place. The fact that we are in a situation where corporations say that government support has “just gotta happen” should be a scary realization for all Americans, and one that anyone who enjoys the benefits of the free market should be fighting.

This is symbolic of all that is wrong with business leaders and our government. This relationship has to stop, as does the audacity of the President who flaunts it under our noses and thinks we won’t notice. This is a giant step in the wrong direction.

RedState’s own Ben Howe put together an awesome FreedomWorks web ad to highlight the huge conflict of interest with Obama’s appointment of Immelt.