I missed that one. When and where did he say we should be training out-of-work manufacturing folks for tech jobs that were most likely to be outsourced? As for your snide comment about fighting with MRI's, who do you think puts the fighting soldier together again? Java programmers? Yeah, the American Techie: keeping us safe from the French for 200 years. One cannot do without the other, my shortsighted friend.
That solution is inherent in what he said:
"I fully understand what you're saying. In other words, as technology races through the economy, a lot of times worker skills don't keep up with technological change."
But the problem nowadays is not worker skills, it's the fact that jobs of ALL skill levels are being lost here. We have some highly skilled tech workers, engineers and managers who can't find work or can only find work at a significant pay cut. All the training in the world, all the improvement of skills can't change that - instead, they are being asked to compete with someone who, in all likeliehood, was trained at an American university and is overseas with much lower living expenses. The tech worker in his mid thirties can't exactly call his mortgage company and have his mortgage reduced to reflect the lower living standards of his competition. This is a gut-wrenching change - but the government should be working to staunch it, instead of increasing the bleeding with policies such as H1-B.