NYTimes | Gee, G.E.
After Bernie Sanders
singled out General Electric’s tax avoidance and extensive overseas
operations as an example of corporate “greed” and “selfishness,” Jeff
Immelt, G.E.’s chief executive, penned a long, snarky op-ed
for The Washington Post that went beyond defending the company, and
appeared to take sides in the Democratic nominating contest. His
comments were particularly unseemly on the eve of hotly-contested
primaries in New York and Connecticut, G.E.’s corporate home bases.
In an interview with the editorial board of The New York Daily News, Mr. Sanders said:
General Electric was created in this country by American workers and American consumers. What we have seen over the many years is shutting down of many major plants in this country. Sending jobs to low-wage countries. And General Electric, doing a very good job avoiding the taxes. In fact, in a given year, they pay nothing in taxes. That’s greed. That is greed and that’s selfishness. That is lack of respect for the people of this country.
Asked “how does that destroy the fabric of America?” Mr. Sanders issued a broader condemnation:
I’ll tell you how it does. If you are a corporation and the only damn thing you are concerned about is your profits. Let’s just give an example of a corporation that’s making money in America, today, but desiring to move to China or to Mexico to make even more money. That is destroying the moral fabric of this country. That is saying that I don’t care that the workers, here have worked for decades. It doesn’t matter to me. The only thing that matters is that I can make a little bit more money. That the dollar is all that is almighty. And I think that is the moral fabric.
G.E.’s controversial
tax avoidance strategies, its shedding of domestic jobs and its heavy
reliance on political lobbying to get what it wants have been
well-documented. That, and Mr. Sanders, clearly got Mr. Immelt’s goat.
