Among the more humorous exchanges in the latest Bloomberg Businessweek‘s collection of “EconoChats” with Tom Keene is the following question addressed to General Electric head honcho Jeffrey Immelt.
How important is Washington to GE’s growth plans?
All of the business world has orchestrated their business to be able to operate assuming nothing happens in Washington. In other words, we could sit and hope for immigration reform or tax reform and things like that. But none of us are counting on it anymore.
More interesting than the answer is the fact that Immelt, one of the nation’s most high-profile cronies, bases almost everything GE does on Washington and its decisions. A more interesting question might have been, “Could GE accomplish anything without trying to pull strings in Washington?”
