Bush, Kerry See Different Economies

President Bush and Sen. John F. Kerry took their argument over the nation’s economy to the airwaves Saturday, with the president asserting the economy was on the mend and his challenger insisting it was drifting overseas.

Bush and Kerry used dueling radio addresses to try to paint pictures of the economy that would serve their interests in the presidential campaign.

Bush hailed Friday’s strong job creation figures -- the best news on jobs in months -- as a “powerful confirmation that America’s economy is growing stronger.”

“Since August, we’ve added over three-quarters of a million new jobs in America. The unemployment rate has fallen from 6.3% last June to 5.7% last month,” Bush said in his weekly radio address.

“Over the last year, the unemployment rate has fallen in 45 of the 50 states. This is good news for American workers, and good news for American families.”

Kerry, who gave the Democratic response, said one month of job creation could not compensate for three years of job losses and job flight to other countries.

“For three years, President Bush’s only answer on jobs has been tax cuts for Americans who are already earning over $200,000 a year,” Kerry said.

“We now hear the administration claiming economic success. But the definition of economic success should not be losing 2.6 million jobs in the private sector. There is not a single month of this administration that has seen the creation of a single manufacturing job.”

In Bush’s version of economic reality, displaced workers are being retrained with government help for higher-tech, higher-paying jobs.

And he said he would offer new proposals on job training this week.

“Our economy has increasing demand for workers with advanced skills, such as teachers, healthcare workers and environmental engineers. But too many Americans do not have these kinds of skills,” Bush said.

“So on Monday, I will travel to North Carolina to propose reforms of our federal job training system, to give our workers the help they need. Better job training will mean better jobs for American workers.”

Kerry argued, by contrast, that Bush’s policies, far from helping U.S. workers, had encouraged companies to shift jobs to foreign countries.

“From cars to computer software to call centers, millions of Americans have seen their jobs shipped overseas,” Kerry said.

“We can’t retreat from the global economy or bring back every lost industry or protect every job. Some of them will move abroad. But we shouldn’t have a president who encourages it -- or a tax code that rewards it.”