2.5M Manufacuring Jobs? No Wonder W Wants A Deputy Secretary of Commerce(?) for Manufacturing Employment

W has asked Secretary of Commerce Donald Evans to appoint an assistant secretary to focus on the needs of manufacturers. What about the needs of WORKERS, W? The poor sumbitch knows that he's in trouble on the loss of manufacturing jobs, so he appoints a Deputy Secretary of Commerce? The next time your house is on fire, call Animal Control. The Left in Madison, WI is right: we need a new president. As was the case in 1932, anyone is better than the Republican candidate. Can the Democrats find a paraplegic? If this be treason, make the most of it.

[x Capitol Newspapers, Madison, WI]
An editorial
September 3, 2003

Since President Bush assumed office on Jan. 20, 2001, the United States has lost more than 2.5 million manufacturing jobs - roughly 50,000 of which came from Wisconsin. When the president should have been focused on the hemorrhaging of vital industries, he instead poured his energies into cutting taxes for the super-rich. The manufacturing job losses are the tip of the economic iceberg. According to the U.S. Labor Department, more than 9 million Americans are looking for work. And while there has been some upturn in manufacturing orders in recent days, there is little evidence in the lives of unemployed Americans to suggest that the United States has turned the corner out of Bush's recession.

However, now that the 2004 election season is just around the corner, the president says he "gets it." "There's a problem with the manufacturing sector," Bush told a Labor Day rally in Ohio, where he wore a union-made costume that looked almost as silly as the flight suit he pulled on to declare in May that the United States had accomplished its mission in Iraq.

Bush coupled his newfound understanding - or should we call it his "election season conversion"? - with a pledge to activate a federal government that has paid little attention to dislocated workers.

Performing his best FDR imitation, Bush announced, "We have a responsibility that when somebody hurts, the government has to move."

But how should the government move? Hopefully not with more of the same.

Bush trade representatives continue to aggressively push for international trade agreements that have been proven to undermine job security, wages, benefits and environmental protections not just in the United States but in the countries we trade with. The "race to the bottom" that began with the North American Free Trade Agreement will be accelerated by a Free Trade Area of the Americas agreement that critics correctly refer to as "NAFTA on steroids." So if government wants to aid American manufacturing workers, step one is to step back from the FTAA.

Bush economic aides, and their allies in the Congress, continue to push for a trickle-down economics approach that relies on tax cuts for the rich to restart the economy. But two years into the experiment, the trickle-down theory is failing just as miserably as it did when Ronald Reagan was president.

The trick is to get money to working people who actually spend it, rather than to millionaires who bank their tax rebates - or use them to shift business operations to the Bahamas. So if government wants to aid American manufacturing workers, step two is to put the brakes on implementation of tax cuts for the rich and shift the money to unemployment benefits and job creation.

If President Bush took these two simple steps, people might believe him when he says, "I believe there are better days ahead for people who are working and looking for work."

Then again, if he fails to take these steps, working people and people looking for work might just bring on the better days by electing a better president.

Copyright © 2003 Capital Newspapers