Posted on 03/21/2004 3:23:22 AM PST by visagoth
Granholm focuses on job losses during Bush administration
The Associated Press
3/20/2004, 12:36 p.m. ET
LANSING, Mich. (AP) — Gov. Jennifer Granholm used the Democratic response to President Bush's weekly radio address to focus on the loss of manufacturing jobs in Michigan and across the country.
She recounted the January decision of Sweden-based appliance maker Electrolux AB to move 2,700 jobs from its plant in Greenville to Mexico next year.
Granholm said the Bush administration is to blame for the decision of Electrolux and other manufacturing companies to lay off workers and move jobs oversees.
"After losing over 2.7 million manufacturing jobs over the last four years, all the Bush administration can say is that shipping jobs overseas is a `positive development,'" she said.
"They continue to negotiate trade deals with no core labor and environmental standards; trade deals that speed the export of American jobs to other countries. They cut funding for job training and retraining for workers who have lost theirs."
Michigan Republican Party Chairwoman Betsy DeVos defended the president, saying Granholm is the one responsible for the state losing 82,000 jobs over the past year and failing to entice Electrolux to stay.
"Gov. Granholm is trying to lay the blame for her own failure to propose bold, pro-economic growth policies to help Michigan businesses and families at the doorstep of President Bush," DeVos said in a statement. "Yet the Bush proposals have produced strong economic growth nationally and helped create over 300,000 jobs in the last several months."
During her five-minute address, Granholm also blasted Bush's choice for a national manufacturing czar.
Nebraska business executive Anthony Raimondo on Thursday withdrew from consideration to be Bush's point man on manufacturing after the campaign for presumptive Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry pointed out Raimondo laid off 75 of his own workers in 2002 after announcing he was constructing a $3 million plant in China.
Bush, meanwhile, used his radio address to talk about the one-year anniversary of troops entering Iraq.
On other topics, the Michigan governor accused the Bush administration of hiding the real cost of the Medicare plan when it was being considered by Congress last November.
Since the Medicare prescription drug law was signed by Bush in December, the administration has acknowledged the benefit likely will cost $534 billion over 10 years, compared to the $395 billion estimated by congressional budget analysts.
Keeping the bill's cost below $400 billion was considered critical to attracting the votes of conservative Republican lawmakers, some of whom vowed to oppose more expensive legislation.
"Just this week, we learned his administration actively hid the cost of his Medicare plan from Congress and the American people and silenced a government Medicare expert — a nonpartisan, federal employee — from speaking the truth," Granholm said.
She added that Bush has damaged his credibility, and that it's time for a change.
"Americans deserve a president who will fight to create good jobs, not export them — a president who cares about the real, human stories in communities like Greenville and places like it all across America," she said.
It's a good thing for the Sweden-based appliance maker to out source it's jobs from Sweden to Michigan, but it's Bush's fault if the Sweden-based appliance maker re-out sources those jobs to Mexico? I'm simply amazed that a Sweden-based appliance maker takes orders from our president.
Anecdotally, one can look at California, New York, and Massachussetts. Also, one can look at the shift of jobs to the non-union South.
Granted, there is a corporate problem as well, with some companies having record profits and nice fat bonuses for the upper echelon of executives, even while the rank and file see their jobs moving to India and China.
I'm just wondering when the 'tipping point' will occur.
That's the elephant in the living room. The only jobs that an executive office can "create" are government jobs -- something like Roosevelt's massive WPA project or minor agencies like the Peace Corps or AmeriCorps.
The problem politically is, if any such elected executive says that, s/he will lose the chance to take credit if things go well. Bush is letting people say that he's "lost" millions of jobs in the hope that if/when things turn around, he can claim to have "created" them.
Unfortunately, people who don't pay attention are easily fooled by sound bites regarding the economy.
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