Bush returns to Ohio to sell his economic plan
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Bush wants Cleveland to know he feels its pain.
For the 15th time as president, Bush on Wednesday visits Ohio, where unemployment is stuck at 6.2 percent and where nearly 200,000 jobs were lost during the recession from 2001 through last March — nearly two-thirds in manufacturing. The national unemployment rate for February was 5.6 percent.
Bush was giving a speech on Americans’ anxiety about jobs going overseas, a senior administration official said. And he was making a fresh push for his economic policies, criticized for months by the Democratic presidential contenders.
That criticism reached its crescendo in Ohio last week, when the state held its presidential primary. Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., won.
Nationwide, 53 percent of registered voters disapprove of the way Bush is handling the economy, while 45 percent approve, according to an Associated Press-Ipsos poll conducted earlier this month.
Bush was eager to strike back, and again chose Ohio for the setting. Bush went to the state to give similar expressions of empathy last Labor Day. “I want you to understand that I understand that Ohio manufacturers are hurting, that there’s a problem with the manufacturing sector,” Bush said then.
Wednesday in Cleveland, Bush was weaving that message together with a pep talk on the state of the economy and a broad pitch for his policies.
“Our economy has challenges, and we know how to meet them,” Bush was saying, according to an advance copy of his remarks provided by the senior official.
“We will continue making the finest products and selling those products across America and across the Earth,” Bush was saying. “We will make sure that American workers have the education and skills to succeed in the jobs of the future, and we will remain the leading economy in the world because America will remain the best place to do business in the world.”
Bush was renewing his call for Congress to pass other elements of his economic growth plan: making permanent an array of tax cuts due to expire this year; reducing dependency on foreign oil; cutting red tape on small business; stopping “frivolous” lawsuits; and making health care more affordable.
The senior official said Bush’s goal was to project a “positive, confident” conviction about the nation’s economy.
After struggling following the 2001 recession and terrorist attacks, the economy finally staged a rebound in the second half of last year. But out-of-work Americans are still suffering. A Labor Department report released Friday showed that payrolls grew by just 21,000 in February, leaving the unemployment rate stuck at 5.6 percent.
Bush’s latest visit to Ohio suggested he was not entirely confident about keeping the state in his column this November. He has returned there again and again to reassure workers he is trying to stem job losses.
Wednesday marked Bush’s latest trip to a state that will carry 20 electoral votes in the election, and one he won in 2000. No Republican has won the White House without carrying Ohio; since 1900, Democrats have won the White House only twice without also winning Ohio.
“This is going to be a very hard-fought race. Ohio is the true battleground state,” Republican Gov. Bob Taft said last week.
Bush planned to point to a Steubenville, Ohio, plant that makes Hondas as an example of a foreign company that has benefited from Bush’s trade and tax policies. It employs 16,000 people in Ohio.
Without naming names, Bush was charging that Kerry would discourage trade.
“Some politicians in Washington see this new challenge and want to respond in old ways. Their agenda is to increase federal taxes, build a wall around our economy and isolate America from the rest of the world,” Bush was saying.
Kerry agrees with Bush on extending some tax cuts past next year, but the Massachusetts senator would roll back tax cuts for Americans who earn more than $200,000. Kerry also agrees with Bush that the North American Free Trade Agreement and other trade pacts were good for America.
Kerry has failed to offer his own economic ideas, Bush was charging.
The senator has said he would “keep manufacturing jobs in this country by ending all tax loopholes and lucrative contracts for jobs being shipped overseas and creating new incentives to keep good jobs” in the United States.