On Road, Bush Talks Economy, Terror War
By JENNIFER LOVEN, Associated Press Writer
TOLEDO, Ohio - President Bush (news - web sites), on the defensive about jobs as he campaigns for re-election, said Wednesday "there are still troubled times" in states like Ohio as he touted his plan for retraining laid-off workers for new careers.
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Democrats derided the approach as meager in an economy that has shed 2.3 million jobs during the Bush presidency.
A day after his State of the Union address, Bush began an overnight trip to three states important to his re-election strategy — Ohio, Arizona and New Mexico. He highlighted the economy as well as the war on terrorism, which polls say is his stronger suit with voters.
Since Bush took office, Ohio's unemployment rate has jumped from 3.9 percent to 5.7 percent, with heavy losses in manufacturing.
"Nationwide this economy is strong," Bush said at Owens Community College near Toledo. "I fully recognize in Ohio there are still troubled times. The manufacturing sector here is sluggish at best, and therefore people are looking for work."
No Republican has ever won the White House without Ohio, and Bush's trip marked his 14th visit to the state. In the last election, he carried Ohio by 3.5 percentage points.
Bush said his "Jobs for the 21st Century" plan would provide relief for laid-off workers. From Ohio, Bush flew to Arizona to make the same argument at Mesa Community College outside Phoenix, the largest city in a state that handed its 10 electoral votes to Bush by a very narrow margin in 2000.
Bush proposes spending an additional $500 million on a slew of job-training and education programs: $250 million in grants to community colleges that partner with employers looking for higher-skilled workers; an extra $33 million in the approximately $12 billion Pell Grant program to give $1,000 more per year to low-income students who complete a rigorous high school curriculum; $100 million to teach middle and high school students to read; $120 million in grants to increase math achievement; and a $28 million increase in funding for Advanced Placement.
"The key is to train people for the work that actually exists," he said.
First lady Laura Bush, meanwhile, promoted the reading initiative, which would give grants to schools to operate research-based reading programs for older students, at a middle school in Orlando, Fla.
Still, there was little explanation from either Bush or his aides to address the question of how the education initiatives and retraining programs — the only new jobs-related proposals he made in the State of the Union — would produce the large number of jobs needed to ease the malaise that still exists in many communities. Last month, for instance, businesses added just 1,000 new jobs nationwide.
While lauding the economy's renewed vigor, Bush acknowledged the need to continue to change the nation's jobs picture.
"There's no need to talk about job training if we're not creating new jobs," he said at Mesa Community College.
Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry (news - web sites), campaigning in New Hampshire, said Bush failed to deliver on a promise to create 250,000 jobs last month. "After four years in office, this president still doesn't understand what's happening in living rooms across this country," Kerry said.
And local protesters braved temperatures that dipped into the single digits to register their dissatisfaction with the president's leadership on the economy. Set up outside the community college, the demonstrators brought along an oversized, inflatable rat bearing the sign, "Where are the jobs?"
While in Arizona, Bush also made a strong pitch for the immigration policy overhaul he proposed earlier this month. Crafted in part with the politics of border states like Arizona in mind, it would allow illegal immigrants with jobs to temporarily work legally in the United States.
"They're coming to make a living and they're filling jobs that, frankly, others won't do," Bush said. "It seems like to me we ought to have a policy that's open and honest about this phenomenon. It's a policy that, in my judgment, should say where there's a willing worker and a willing employer, those two ought to be matched up together in a legal way."
On Thursday, the president was off to New Mexico, which went to Democrat Al Gore (news - web sites) in 2000 by 366 votes, for a stop focused on the war on terrorism.
Back in Washington, the White House tried to spread Bush's message by allowing talk radio hosts to broadcast from the front lawn, complete with all-day access to various top-level Bush officials.
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