Russ Feingold: GE CEO Jeffrey Immelt must go

[The Northerner]

Former Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Wisc.) launched a petition on Wednesday calling on President Barack Obama to oust General Electric CEO Jeffrey Immelt as the head of the White House’s jobs panel, if the executive doesn’t step down voluntarily.

Feingold’s complaint stems from recent revelations that GE will pay no taxes this year, despite making more than $5 billion in the United States in 2010.

Feingold’s PAC, which sent the email, launched earlier this year and gained traction during the labor protests in Madison, has registered the web domain, ImmeltMustGo.com

“We cannot stand by and watch while we are led down this road. Mr. Immelt must step down from the president’s jobs panel — and if he won’t, President Obama needs to ask for his resignation,” Feingold wrote. “How can someone like Immelt be given the responsibility of heading a jobs creation task force when his company has been creating more jobs overseas while reducing its American workforce? And under Immelt’s direction, GE spends hundreds of millions of dollars hiring lawyers and lobbyists to evade taxes.”

In the email, Feingold painted the issue as a Main Street versus Wall Street affair — territory that is not unfamiliar for the former lawmaker defeated last November by tea party-backed Ron Johnson. Last summer, Feingold voted against the Democrats’ sweeping financial regulatory bill because he believed it did not go far enough in reining in big banking institutions.

Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0311/52240.html#ixzz1I79oWlRk

[MannyGoldstein]

1. WTF

Winning The Future

[Blue Owl]

5. while FTP

Forgetting The Past

:wtf:

[nashville_brook]

14. omg

:evilgrin:

[Blue Owl]

18. RFR

Russ Feingold Rocks!

:headbang:

[Enthusiast]

22. Forgetting the past

is the greatest sin.

The American people have forgotten that after the great depression the Republican Party was so vilified that they would not be a significant influence on legislation for many decades. All the accomplishments of the 20th Century are Democratic Party accomplishments.

Does Obama know this? Does Obama know 20th century political history? Does Obama know that Reagan pandered to racists? Does Obama know the truth of Iran-Contra? If Obama does know about Iran-Contra why would he still have respect for Reagan. In my opinion Reagan is not deserving of respect.

[Freddie Stubbs]

2. GE's responsibility is to its shareholders to pay as little taxes as the law allows

Immelt would have been derelict of his fiduciary responsibilities if he allowed the company to pay more taxes that it owed. The problem is that US tax laws have too many loopholes. President Obama has proposed a plan to close loopholes in conjunction with lowering the overall corporate tax rate. If Feingold were smarter, he would be pushing this. But if he were smarter, he would probably still be a Senator.

[Name removed]

3. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[sabrina 1]

4. What a convoluted argument to try to excuse something

that when Bush was president, no one on the Dem side had any doubts about.

I'll give you points for working so hard, though, and I did laugh.

If being smart was what was required to be a Senator, this country would most likely not be in the mess it's in.

George Bush's tax cuts for the rich would be gone, in fact they never would have happened saving the country over 2 trillion dollars. We would not be in Iraq and Afghanistan, the SS fund would never have been raided, torture would not be a policy, we would not have lost the right to Habeas Corpus, there would be no Patriot Act or MCA, no one would be spying on the American people, the economy would never have collapsed as it has, there would be a plan in place to deal with Climate Change, we would already be using alternative sources of energy. Should I go on?

You weren't serious about that, were you? :rofl:

What is required to be a U.S. Senator is MONEY.

Oh yes, and Russ Feingold is right. What he has that lost him his Senate seat, are principles. A rare commodity in the U.S. today as your post demonstrates.

We did not support this administration so we get the kind of ridiculous defense of the indefensivable you just presented, which we got for eight years from the Bush administration. We voted to CHANGE those kinds of Orwellian/Rand/Freidman theories.

[Kingofalldems]

9. +1

[OhioChick]

11. +2 n/t

[Nye Bevan]

26. How is it a "convoluted argument"?

It's pretty simple, if a CEO of a public company does something that screws the shareholders (like paying more taxes than is legally required) then he is not doing is job and will probably be sued by the shareholders. It's fine to argue that the laws relating to corporation tax should be changed, but it's ridiculous to advocate that pension funds and other shareholders of GE should be screwed to make some kind of political point.

[Armstead]

27. GE goesd far beyonf "fidicuary responsibility" They have led the charge to destroy the US

And I fucking mean that. Jack Welch is one of the people most single handedly responsible for creating the 'corporate ethic" of the last 30 years that corporations should have no loyalty to anyone, any nation or anything else otehrt than pure unadulterated greed and growth.

Appointing his successor -- who obviously shares that killer, winner-take-all philosophy -- to "rebuild jobds and the American economy" isd just politically stupid and it is totally contrary to the values President Obama claimed to have when he ran for President.

It's like appointing the head of Wal Mart to head a program to save local businesses.

[sabrina 1]

31. Because such a person, someone who would screw the whole

country to ensure that HIS corporation profited, does not belong in our government. Whose interests is he now concerned about? Corporate America's or the American people's? The cutting of taxes for the wealthy has contributed so much to the deficit.

And yes, we definitely do need to change our laws to make things more equitable for the bottom 90% or so and we need to stop gambling with pension funds also. Whose idea was that, to use those funds to play poker with?

[Name removed]

6. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Bluebear]

7. 'But if he were smarter, he would probably still be a Senator.' - as arrogant as the White House.

[Tatiana]

10. They do a good job of following the example set by their leader. n/t

[Bluebear]

13. Disgusting.

[yardwork]

8. You're correct about the fiduciary responsibility, Freddie.

This is not well understood, as evidenced by the angry responses to your post. Publicly-traded corporations like GE are legally required to maximize return on investment for their shareholders.

It is not possible for corporations to "do the right thing" unless doing the right thing is codified into law. This is why it is essential that we change the laws.

It's also essential that we maintain robust regulatory oversight because the corporations will break the law every chance they get if they think they can get away with it.

[Enthusiast]

25. Fixed that fer ya.

It's also essential that we maintain robust regulatory oversight because corporations break the law every chance they get because they are never investigated or punished.

[Armstead]

28. BUT THAT IS NOT THE DAMN POINT!!!!!!!

Pardon me for screaming, but the blockheadedness of the defense of this is astounding.

This is not a debate about fiduciary responsibility and all that crap.

This is about WHO PRESIDENT OBAMA CHOSE TO HEAD A TASK FORCE TO REVITALIZE AMERICAN JOBS AND THE ECONOMY.

If Mr. Immelt wants to run GE in a way that ruins the Americanm economy, that is one thing.

BUT for President Obamas to put him in a position to help shape US government policy....That is both politically idiotic and contrary to everything Obama claimed to stand for.

[yardwork]

32. It's unnecessary to shout. I'm not defending corporations or Obama.

The point we are making is that Mr. Immelt doesn't have much choice in how he runs GE. He is legally required to maximize the return on investment for the shareholders. This is the problem. Even if Mr. Immelt and other CEOs wanted to be nice guys - and I am not arguing that they do, people don't become CEOs of huge corporations by being nice - they would not be allowed to do so under current U.S. law.

THAT is a very big problem. Until we change those laws - which would be a very big systemic change that Wall Street and Republicans and apparently many Democrats would howl over as being socialism - it really doesn't make much difference who Obama or any other president chooses to head this or that task force.

You can't find a CEO of a major company that is behaving much differently than Mr. Immelt. You can find worse: The Koch brothers, for instance. You can find a few who are a little better, but not in any significant way.

We have a problem and until we address that problem everything else is window dressing.

[nashville_brook]

15. wow -- is there a DUzy for assholiest swipes?

[Enthusiast]

23. Working for the other side, huh?

[NorthCarolina]

12. K&R

[I Drink Water]

16. The world would be a better place with more Russ Feingolds in it.

[upi402]

17. So true

Yet he wasn't re-elected. That's free speech like W's free speech zones.

I got that email too from Russ.

[progressoid]

19. Why would the President do that?

I GIVE UP

http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/mon-march-28-2011/i-give-up---pay-anything---

[disillusioned73]

20. Russ Fiengold & Alan Grayson... two men with principles and spine..

I am so sick & tired of all these damn low info. voters across the country f*cking it up for the rest of us!

[Enthusiast]

21. I signed it.

How in the fuck can Obama believe this is someone his supporters would find acceptable? What steps has Immelt taken to create jobs? Isn't Immelt's company responsible for outsourcing hundreds of thousands of jobs?

Was this appointment of Immelt crafted to create disillusionment in the ranks of Democratic voters for 2012? I am dead serious.

[xchrom]

24. recommend

[Travelman]

29. Uhmmm .... Russ?

All those tax credits that GE has taken so that they pay no taxes?


Yeah, um, well, http://governor.ontheissues.org/International/Russell_Feingold_Energy_+_Oil.htm">you supported them.





I don't think Feingold is in much of a position to demand the resignation/firing of someone who simply followed the legislation that Feingold himself supported in the first place.

[SugarShack]

30. Yes, Feingold and Grayson are the TICKET!

If they won't do it I hope that Bernie Sanders will run...