In a Washington Post op-ed today, America’s foremost rentseekers, John Doerr of Kleiner Perkins Caulfield & Byers (Al Gore’s venture capital firm) and General Electric CEO Jeff Immelt, wrote:
We are American businessmen. Our job is building businesses and commercializing innovation. Every year, GE invests 6 percent of its industrial revenue in research and development to produce more efficient and cleaner wind turbines, jet engines, locomotives, power turbines and appliances. Kleiner Perkins has invested $680 million in 48 of the most compelling new clean-energy technologies, with $1.1 billion more to invest. We are trying to do our part. But our government’s energy and climate policies are our principal obstacle to success.
By lobbying for the America-hating, economy-killing Waxman-Markey bill simply to make money, Doerr and Immelt are not businessmen so much as they are thieving parasites. They want a federal law which would enable them to sponge-off taxpayers and rip-off consumers. By forcing Americans to pay more for energy and to reduce their standard of living, Doerr and Immelt will destroy not build America.