Immelt, Obama's man from G.E. stepping down

“Adoption of the Common Core by states was a historic event in education and one we believe will dramatically alter the landscape of education forever,” said Bob Corcoran, president of the GE Foundation."

Jeffery Immelt is the chairman and chief executive of G.E., the largest corporation in the U.S. and a company that rakes in about $15 billion/yr. yet pays not a penny in U.S. taxes. In fact, in 2010 the company actually received tax credits of $3.2 billion dollars while at the same time, wringing millions in wage and benefit concessions from its workers. Pretty slick, huh?

Immelt and Obama

That didn't stop Obama from making Jeffery Immelt, a Republican, his top outside economic adviser as head of the Council on Jobs and Competitiveness. Now that the president has disbanded the Council, Immelt can trot on back to his post at G.E. where he can build more nukes and invest company profits overseas to avoid the IRS.

While the company is glad to get him back in the front office, his two years as part of Team Obama were not without its benefits for Immelt and G.E.. According to the WSJ, in a note to all the members of the council Immelt thanked them for their work and specifically mentioned the fast-tracking (no-bid contracts) key projects and selling more leases for both oil and fracking for natural gas.  GE doubled the number of engineering interns it hires to 3,600 as part of its work on the Jobs Council.

Immelt, with the help of Hillary Clinton, was also able to help G.E. move thousands of jobs to China to help build nuclear reactor parts to export to India (Whew! Hard to keep up.) GE-Hitachi also builds advanced nuclear reactors and wants China First Heavy Industries Group, a state-run Chinese company that is directly involved in Chinese nuclear weapons production, to build major components.

Asked whether he would answer a call from the president in his second term, Mr. Immelt said: “I’d say I’ve had the honor of serving you already, Mr. President.” Adding, “At the end of the day what you really want me doing is selling jet engines.”

What a guy!

What has all this got to do with education?  G.E. under Immelt's direction somehow avoids paying any taxes in this country that might go to support public education and the public school and university training of his company's engineers and scientists. Also, the G.E. Foundation underwrites a lot of corporate-style school "reform" and is one of the main backers of Common Core Standards and testing.