Bush on the Issues

With the Presidential election not far off, AFSCME members have a vital stake in understanding the record of George Bush and his administration.

By the Public Employee Staff

The Presidential race is rapidly heating up, and this fall's election will be the most important one in any of our lifetimes. Reflecting that urgency, AFSCME members have been seeking solid, reliable information on the Bush administration's policies.

Public Employee has put together a list of recurring questions about the Bush record — with corresponding answers drawn from the most authoritative materials we could locate. For this issue, we are running four of these Q&As — dealing with jobs, federal taxes, education policy and the problem of overseas outsourcing. Another four or five questions will be posed and answered in the May/June issue.

We welcome your responses or additional questions in the form of Letters to the Editor.

President Bush's advisers projected that the economy would create 2.6 million new jobs this year. What is the Bush administration actually doing about jobs?

Since George W. Bush became President, the economy has lost 2.6 million jobs. He has the worst record on jobs of any modern President. He has cut taxes three times, saying that would jump-start the economy and create jobs. But relatively few have been created. Instead, the tax cuts have gone disproportionately to the wealthy who already have jobs — or don't need them.

Aggravating the situation is legislation that spends billions of dollars rebuilding Iraq and Afghanistan but relatively little on urgent domestic needs: training, education and a host of other federal and state programs that could help restore lost jobs.

The Facts About Jobs

The Bush administration has consistently overpredicted future job growth:

Administration Forecasts - 2002: 138.3 million
Administration Forecasts - 2003: 135.2 million
Administration Forecasts - 2004: 132.7 million
Actual Nonfarm Payroll Employment - 2004: 130.2 million

Sources: Bureau of Labor Statistics; Economic Reports of the President, 2002, 2003, and 2004.

I got a $300 tax refund last year because of President Bush's tax cuts. I know the rich got a much bigger tax cut, but I am happy that I got something. What's wrong with that?

There's nothing wrong with working families getting a tax break if the government can afford it. The problem with Bush's tax cuts is that they give money to the wrong people. While middle-income taxpayers like you got an average of about $256, people earning more than $1 million received reductions averaging $92,000. In other words, the people who need the money least are getting most of it — all in the name of boosting the economy and creating jobs, which has not occurred. Meanwhile, the Bush administration has racked up the largest deficit in history.

There's more bad news: According to the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center, Bush's tax cuts will leave the middle-class taxpayer holding a greater share of the federal tax burden by the end of the decade than before he made them.

President Bush touts accomplishments in education, including his No Child Left Behind initiative. Has he really improved the educational system for our children?

No. The nation's school system is disintegrating. The fall of 2003 brought the largest number of children ever into the public schools. Yet cuts in federal funding have meant program cutbacks, doubled-up classes and teacher layoffs nationwide.

Bush promised to provide the resources needed for No Child Left Behind. But he has never kept that pledge. His proposed FY 2005 budget — with the smallest education increase in nine years — supplies $9.4 billion less than the legislation calls for. That adds up to a more than $26 billion shortfall since the law was enacted in 2001. In addition, Title I — targeted to low-income children — is underfunded by $7.2 billion, leaving nearly five million disadvantaged youngsters without extra academic help and services.

On average, our schools are 40 years old, with one-third needing repair or replacement and using trailers or portable classrooms to house students. But the Bush budget allots only $54 million for maintenance and construction — enough to build six medium-sized schools!

Even as it is starving our public schools, the Bush administration is pouring federal money into voucher programs that fund private-school tuition at taxpayer expense. The U.S. Department of Education has spent millions to help right-wing foundations create a phony voucher "movement." The 2005 budget request recommends $50 million for a national experiment with school vouchers — money that would build six more schools.

I hear that good American jobs are being sent overseas. What's behind this, and is anyone trying to prevent it?

"Outsourcing" as it's called, is a growing phenomenon causing the loss of many good white-collar positions that rely on information technology. Software development, customer service/call centers, accounting and product development are among the U.S. jobs that are disappearing.

Forrester Research, an independent firm, forecasts that 600,000 jobs in these categories will leave America to such countries as India, China, Russia and the Philippines by 2005. The numbers may balloon to as many as 3.3 million by 2015, costing American workers $136 billion in wages over that decade. Worse, Forrester notes, "the numbers will easily double" when outsourcing to such countries as Japan, the United Kingdom and Germany is included.

An estimated 40 percent of Fortune 1000 companies — many of them big Bush contributors — are now engaged in some form of overseas outsourcing. While members of Congress and lawmakers in 20 states are working to counteract the alarming trend, the Bush administration is making it worse. A report by the President's Council of Economic Advisers recommends, as one of its six "pillars," expanding the global exchange of goods and services (jobs). It also raises the prospect of "growing" U.S. manufacturing jobs by reclassifying service work in firms like McDonald's as manufacturing.

To add insult to injury, as Americans are losing jobs, the Bush administration continues to oppose the extension of unemployment benefits for those who lose them; and the chairman of the President's own Council of Economic Advisers recently stunned the nation by calling outsourcing "a good thing," just "a new way of doing international trade."