March 12, 2004 - ``We remain focused in this administration on those individuals that are going through the painful period of their life without a job to make sure we have programs to assist them,''

Bill Clinton did not say that. George Bush’s Secretary of Commerce did. He said it yesterday when he was dispatched to CNBC to fend off the political flak arising from the withdrawal of the President’s nomination of the CEO of Behlen Manufacturing Co. for the newly created office of assistant secretary for manufacturing.

Anthony Raimondo was supposed to be the spearhead of a Bush Administration drive to rebuild American manufacturing that has hemorrhaged jobs since Bush took office. One sixth of the people employed in the nation’s manufacturing base have lost their jobs since the summer of 2000. 3 Million Americans have seen factories close and be rebuilt overseas. Raimondo’s nomination ran into trouble when it was revealed that Behlen was simultaneously laying off workers at its Nebraska manufacturing plant and building a plant in China. It stood the old saw on its head, “If you are part of the problem you aren’t part of the solution.” Raimondo’s justification for shipping jobs to the one remaining Communist Superpower is that he is just trying to break into the Chinese market, building steel buildings and farm equipment with Chinese steel and Chinese labor. Perhaps he will sell them at Wal-Mart. Last month it was President Bush’s economist, N. Gregory Mankiw who was telling us that shipping jobs overseas was a good thing that would have long term benefits for the economy. I guess he had been shopping at Wal-Mart.

What are those programs the Bush Administration has to assist workers whose jobs have been exported as part of the George Bush economy? Well, it sure isn’t the extension of jobless benefits to enable those individuals that “are going through a painful period of their life with out a job” to meet their bills. The Bush Administration firmly opposes that kind of give-away program. It sure isn’t retraining displaced Americans for the technical jobs that are supposed to be replacing job losses in manufacturing. The Bush Administration has cut back on such non-essential domestic spending. After all, those technical jobs are being outsourced to India. The only solution that the Bush economic team has been able to come up with yet has been to reclassify building burgers from a service occupation to manufacturing thereby reviving the manufacturing sector statistics.

In February the Administration announced that 21,000 new jobs had been created. It turned out that they were all State and Local government positions. Even those jobs are being outsourced. The Gubernator’s California, for example, is privatizing its administration of the food stamp program to – you guessed it, didn’t you – to India. The President says that any attempt to stem the flow of jobs overseas is “protectionist” and anathema to job creation and free trade.

Well, Mr. President, there are some things that are worth protecting.