Press Letterhead

President Bush Defends Unfair Trade Practices That Put American Jobs at Risk
 
Touts Job Training – Even While His Budget Would Axe Job Training Programs 

Friday, March 3, 2006

 

WASHINGTON, DC -- President Bush made a speech in the city of Hyderabad in India today in which he defended his Administration’s failed trade policies and said that the solution to the outsourcing of U.S. jobs overseas is job training for American workers. Rep. George Miller (D-CA) said today that the President’s comments revealed a fundamental failure to recognize and respond to challenges facing the U.S. in an increasingly fierce global economy. Miller, the senior Democrat on the House Education and the Workforce Committee, issued the following statement this afternoon:

“American workers all over the country are watching as their jobs disappear and their paychecks shrink while their government sits by and does nothing. The President’s disingenuous remarks in India today prove once again that he is incapable of responding to the urgent threats to America’s economic standing in the world. We can keep the American economy strong through bold ideas and strong action, and we must, but once again the President is failing to lead.

“Outrageously, President Bush spoke of job training as the solution to the nation’s outsourcing woes at the same time that he is proposing to gut every single one of the nation’s premier job training programs. If that’s not enough, Washington Republicans passed and President Bush signed a budget cutting bill that took $12 billion out of the federal student aid programs in the largest raid on student aid in American history. And while the president said in his State of the Union speech that America needs to invest in innovations and competitiveness, his new budget proposal does not do that. If the President thinks that this is the way to help Americans find new and better jobs, then he lives in his own world of make believe.

“President Bush also failed to mention that his own Administration is pushing for trade policies that lack common sense and basic protections for workers. He continues to push for more of the same failed trade policies that have lost the United States over 3 million manufacturing jobs and that gave us a record trade deficit. The President believes in trade agreements that help those who are already dominant on the world scene further boost their profits at the expense of workers in American and India. Why are we mortgaging away our future on trade policies that hurt American workers and do little or nothing to help the world’s poor?

“We have had too many broken promises and too much doublespeak from this President. He is not serious about helping America’s workers and he has no credibility about building a strong economy that works for all Americans. There is a better way, through public-private partnerships that invest in high-risk, high-reward research and development, educate new engineers and scientists, and foster good jobs in the United States.”

Last year, House Democrats unveiled their ‘Innovation Agenda’ – a commitment to competitiveness to keep America No. 1. For more information on Democrats’ Innovation Agenda, visit: http://www.housedemocrats.gov/news/librarydetail.cfm?library_content_id=557

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