GlobalWarming.org » crony capitalism

General Electric CEO Jeff Immelt Sours on President Obama

Brian McGraw — Tue, 20 Mar 2012 21:07:38 +0000

Jeff Immelt, chairman and CEO of General Electric, has gone sour on President Obama:

Back when he agreed to advise the Obama administration on economics, General Electric CEO Jeff Immelt told friends that he thought it would be good for GE and good for the country. A life-long Republican, Immelt said he believed he could at the very least moderate the president’s distinctly anti-business instincts.
That was three years ago; these days Immelt is telling friends something quite different.
Sure, GE has managed to feast on federal subsidies, particularly the “green-energy” giveaways that are Obamanomics’ hallmark.
But Immelt doesn’t think he’s had anywhere near as much luck moderating the president’s fat-cat-bashing, left-leaning economic agenda of taxing businesses and entrepreneurs to pay for government bloat.

Friends describe Immelt as privately dismayed that, even after three years on the job, President Obama hasn’t moved to the center, but instead further left. The GE CEO, I’m told, is appalled by everything from the president’s class-warfare rhetoric to his continued belief that big government is the key to economic salvation.

This is rich. While I happen to agree with Immelt that increasing the size and scope of government is not in our nations best interests, GE/Immelt are an infamous symbol of crony capitalism, where big government and big business get together and rig the game to enrich themselves while the American taxpayers get the shaft. In General Electric’s case this consists of support for all sorts of tax credits and subsidies for wind energy production, support for the Waxman-Markey cap and trade bill, spending almost $40 million lobbying in 2010, and the list goes on.

Despite his new found anxiety (I wonder if this has anything to do with the prospect of a Romney presidency), Immelt is still the chair of the President’s Council on Jobs and Competitiveness, and thus a part of the problem:

The President’s Council on Jobs and Competitiveness (Jobs Council) was created to provide non-partisan advice to the President on continuing to strengthen the Nation’s economy and ensure the competitiveness of the United States and on ways to create jobs, opportunity, and prosperity for the American people.
The Jobs Council is made up of members appointed by the President from among distinguished citizens outside the Federal Government, including citizens chosen to serve as representatives of the various sectors of the economy to offer the diverse perspectives of the private sector, employers, and workers on how the Federal Government can best foster growth, competitiveness, innovation, and job creation.

Now, while its not clear that the Council on Jobs and Competitiveness actually has any influence (or has accomplished anything), their recommendations consist of various forms of industrial policy, again set up to funnel money from taxpayers into industry such that industry doesn’t have to compete in an open market place producing things that consumers want, but rather profit from lavish subsidies, tax credits, and mandates:

Adopt an “All-In” Strategy on Energy
In order to stay competitive, the U.S. must maintain access to abundant and affordable energy while reducing our reliance on foreign imports and moving toward cleaner energy sources. The Jobs Council recommends an “all-in” approach to energy that optimizes all of America’s natural resources, drives innovation and investment, and promotes efficiency to reduce our overall energy dependence.
Revitalize the American Manufacturing Sector
The U.S. still boasts the most productive, highly-educated manufacturing workforce in the world, unrivaled intellectual property protections, and an advantage in low-cost energy. These strengths at home, and rising costs abroad, give reason to be bullish about American manufacturing. The U.S. can gain three to four percentage points of global value added market share—an ambitious but achievable goal. To accomplish that we must emphasize our traditional manufacturing advantages while taking more aggressive measures in key sectors to take share from global competitors.

Luckily for Immelt, Romney will assuredly welcome him and his lobbying cash with open arms, if he wins the 2012 election. As my colleague Marlo Lewis noted today in an e-mail: “Immelt wants GE Exceptionalism – big government support for his company, but not big government in general.”

Obama’s Green Albatross

William Yeatman — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 19:51:31 +0000

Stimulus spending on environmentalist policy is a green albatross around the neck of President Barack Obama. Inspectors General are having a field day auditing stimulus-funded programs for so-called “green jobs,” and the media LOVES stories about wasted taxpayer money. What started as a sop to his environmentalist base, now threatens to become a slow-drip nightmare of negative press. The timing couldn’t be worse for the President. It takes time to disburse scores of billions of dollars, so we are only now starting to scrutinize stimulus spending. By November 2012, we’ll be able to account for most of the money, and unless the current trend changes radically, the Executive in Chief is going to look conspicuously incompetent.

Here’s the back-story: In early 2009, the Executive and Legislative branches of government had a popular mandate to defibrillate America’s moribund economy with a huge injection of taxpayer dollars. Instead of limiting this “stimulus” to state bailouts and infrastructure spending, the Obama administration (led by climate “czar” and former EPA administrator Carol Browner) and the Congressional majority (led by House Energy and Commerce Chair Henry Waxman (D-Beverly Hills)) also sought to advance environmentalist policy. As a result, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, a.k.a. the stimulus, included almost $70 billion in spending for green jobs and renewable energy infrastructure.

Every single link along the green energy supply chain was showered with subsidies. There was funding for green jobs training, funding for factories to make green products, and funding to incentivize demand for green goods and services. It was as like a green Gosplan!

Most of the money went to the Energy and Labor Departments. Budgets ballooned. To cite a typical example, in 2008, the Department of Energy’s weatherization program budget went from $450 million to $5 billion. Making matters worse, federal bureaucrats were told to spend the stimulus as fast as possible, in order to jumpstart job-creation. Exploding budgets and a mandate to rush money out the door—that’s a recipe for poor stewardship of taxpayer dollars. This is borne out by an increasing number of watchdog reports concluding that stimulus spending for green goals was wasteful. Here’s a laundry list of what they’ve found so far:

On November 2, Eliot P. Lewis, the Department of Labor’s IG, testified before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee that the Labor Department received $435 million to train 96,000 people in the renewable energy trade. The goal was to create 80,000 green jobs. Through June 30, according to Mr. Lewis’s testimony, the Labor Department had spent $130 million, which is 30% of the program budget, and created a scant 1,336 jobs, which is 2% of the program target.

During the same Congressional hearing, the Department of Energy IG Gregory Friedman said that he had launched more than 100 criminal investigations into green energy spending. Each one is a potential scandal.

GreenWire’s (subscription required) Annie Snider has reported on a series of IG investigations by the Department of Defense faulting the military for wasteful stimulus spending on green energy projects. The report titles say it all: “American Revoery and Reinvestment Act Wind Turbine Projects at Long-Range Radar Site in Alaska Were Not Adequately Planned”; “The Departmnet of the Navy Spent Recovery Act Funds on Photovoltaic Projects That Were Not Cost-Effective”; “U.S. Air Force Academy Could Have Significantly Improved Planning Funding, and Initial Execution of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act Solar Array Project”; and “Geothermal Energy Development Project at Naval Air Force Station Fallon, Nevada, Did Not Meet Recovery Act Requirements.”

On November 7, the Department of Energy Office of the Inspector General issued a “management alert” regarding the Western Area Power Administration’s $3 billion, stimulus-created loan program to facilitate the transmission of electricity from renewable energy projects in the west. According to the IG alert, “Western had not implemented the necessary safeguards to ensure its commitment of funding was optimally protected.”

In October, Resources for the Future released a report suggesting that the $3 billion, stimulus funded “cash for clunkers” program, whereby the government subsidized the purchase of fuel efficient cars for consumers that agreed to junk their less fuel efficient cars, was an economic and environmental failure.

Since February, the Energy and Commerce Committee has been investigating Solyndra, the California solar panel manufacturer that declared bankruptcy in September, leaving the taxpayer on the hook for a $535 million stimulus-funded loan guarantee from the Department of Energy.

Why is the green stimulus failing? As I note above, ballooning budgets and a mandate to spend fast are conducive to waste.

More fundamentally, central planning of the economy is a loser. Invariably, politics corrupts the process. Members of Congress are less concerned about the economic viability of the industries into which they invest taxpayer money, and much more concerned with getting pork to their districts. Civil servants, no matter how disinterested, know that their political overlords are watching their decisions carefully, so as to ensure that taxpayers give-aways reach their constituents. (For an archetypical example of a Member of Congress browbeating a civil servant, see this post about Sen. Al Franken shaking down Energy Secretary Steven Chu).

When parochial politics isn’t interfering, crony capitalism is. According to “Throw Them All Out,” a new book by Peter Shweizer, $16.4 billion of the $20.5 billion in loans granted by the stimulus-created loan guarantee program (whence the Solyndra debacle) “went to companies either run by or primarily owned by Obama financial backers.” Of course, political payback is a poor substitute for sound financial analysis.

Gross fiscal mismanagement by government attracts media like flies to dung. So far, most coverage is by local papers reporting on local failures. (See “Seattle’s Green Jobs Program a Bust,” by the Seattle Post Intelligencer and “Stimulus Funds Provide Training, But Openings Few in State,” by the Detroit News.) However, even the New York Times, whose editorial board supports green energy subsidies, published a story titled, “Number of Green Jobs Fails to Live up to Promises.” Expect many more of these types of articles as the watchdogs continue to do their work.

As the negative press mounts, the President will become ever-more burdened by his foolish bet on green energy.