I would expect GE and Republicans to be best buddies. GE GOP. Cheerleaders could easily get a crowd to chant that. So why are Mitt Romney and Congressional Republicans willing to dismantle long established tax breaks for renewable energy that have hitherto enjoyed bipartisan support, just to score points with the Tea Party at the expense of American jobs, an already slow manufacturing recovery, and (you would think this might bother a Republican) at the expense of General Electric's earnings.
I pay attention to GE because I have an old 401k that holds a long position in a few hundred GE shares. When GE announced it's lower than expected quarterly earnings on Friday, the company said it had suffered negatively from only a few particular sectors of its business, and decline in wind turbine orders was one of the big ones.
As reported in The Hill:
The uncertainty surrounding a wind industry tax credit decreased General Electric’s energy infrastructure revenues 5 percent in the third quarter as wind turbine sales dropped, the company said Friday.
Why is there uncertainty about these things? Republican obstructionism and the death of bipartisanship at the hands of the Republicans in Congress and their standard bearer Mitt Romney. As the
New York Times put it:
The tax break, which costs about $1 billion a year, has been periodically renewed by Congress with support from both parties. This year, however, it has become a wedge issue in the presidential contest. President Obama has traveled to wind-heavy swing states like Iowa to tout his support for the subsidy. Mitt Romney, the Republican nominee, has said he opposes the wind credit, and that has galvanized Republicans in Congress against it, perhaps dooming any extension or at least delaying it until after the election despite a last-ditch lobbying effort from proponents this week.
So, Romney and his party hate GE. Go figure. Somebody should tell
Jack Welch.