GE and Yarmuth – Strange Bedfellows?

Let’s examine these two statements:

The Obama administration gave corporate giant General Electric—the parent company of NBC–$24.9 million in grants from the $787-billion economic “stimulus” law President Barack Obama signed in February 2009, according to records posted by the administration at Recovery.gov. CNS news.com Oct 11, 2010

Today, Congressman John Yarmuth (KY-3) released the following statement in response to the news that more than $24.8 million in tax credits from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act has been awarded to GE’S Appliance Park to create jobs and generate investment. Yarmuth.house.gov January 11, 2010

So a global corporate giant received roughly $25 million in stimulus money and spent it all in Louisville?  And Louisville added 400 jobs and GE laid off 18,000 yet made $156 million in revenue.  $25 million seems small potatoes for a company worth $183 billion.  If it is true that GE spent $25 million at appliance park in Louisville why would they spend the money here? Could it be that GE has too much invested in John Yarmuth?  Proving that there is a symbiotic relationship between politicians and big business hoping to influence them; Yarmuth has had tens of thousands of dollars in GE stock and GE has contributed over $10k to Yarmuth political campaigns.

The obvious conclusion in this situation is:

GE contributed money to Yarmuth in order to encourage him to vote favorably on legislation influencing GE, (such as the stimulus package) and as GE profited Yarmuth bought and sold GE stock to take advantage of some of the profit himself.  Then Yarmuth sent some federal stimulus money GE’s way to get them to add some jobs in Louisville and make Yarmuth look good.  It’s a win-win for GE and Yarmuth, with a little bone thrown Louisville’s way.

Of course we can’t “prove” this conclusion, we can only look at the numbers and infer what we will.  And what did Louisville get out of this deal? GE got some taxpayer money to pad their revenue stream.  Yarmuth got some influx in his personal balance sheet.  And Louisville got a 400 job drop in the bucket of 10% unemployment.

The question is: Was it worth it?

Advertisement