President Bush, eager to shake the sick economy`s political hex, Monday proposed new job-training programs for youths and dislocated workers that would boost the government`s efforts by at least $2 billion a year.
”It is bold, innovative and it is loyal only to the future and to the American worker,” said Bush as he detailed his $10 billion five-year plan in Union, N.J., where he was campaigning.
Bush administration officials said the money would come from cuts elsewhere in the budget.
The president`s proposal is a departure from his prior policy of generally holding the line on spending for job-training efforts.
The current U.S. job-training effort, not including assistance for workers who permanently lose their jobs because of foreign trade, has grown from $2.7 billion in 1989 to $2.9 billion this year.
At the same time, the federal government`s funding for job-training efforts in Illinois dropped from $154 million in 1989 to $135 million this year.
Bush`s plan quickly was criticized by Democratic presidential candidate Bill Clinton, who questioned where Bush would find the money.
”He just got through telling us at the convention we were going to have to have huge tax cuts paid for by huge spending cuts in amounts to be unspecified, and now he`s come out with a huge spending program. . . . I think it`s very difficult to take this seriously,” said Clinton in Little Rock, Ark.
Clinton`s campaign staff pointed out that he has proposed a $219 billion four-year plan to rebuild the economy, which includes apprenticeship programs and a plan to tax employers 1.5 percent of their payroll for training workers. William Bywater, president of the International Union of Electronic Workers, similarly issued a rejection of Bush`s plan, saying it would not help workers recover their lost jobs.
”What kind of jobs will workers be training for and where will the jobs be?” he asked. ”Bush thinks a job is a job. That is not the case. We are losing good-paying manufacturing jobs and having them replaced by low-paying service jobs.”
The president`s program, which is a combination of old and new ideas and programs, appeared somewhat rushed.
It lacked details on how much one of the programs-a doubling of the Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps-would cost. The cost estimates for some programs also differed between the White House and Labor Department versions. Coping with dislocated workers has mushroomed into a major problem for the Bush administration in the current economic slump, which has put nearly 10 million people out of work.
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The Labor Department recently said a greater portion of workers today are likely to permanently lose their jobs than during any other downturn since 1970.
Of factory workers laid off since the recession began in June 1990, 90 percent do not expect to return to their old jobs, according to the Labor Department.
Bush`s job-training proposal calls for the funding of current programs for adult dislocated workers and others who lose their jobs because of foreign trade to go from about $600 million to $2 billion yearly.
This program would replace the Economic Dislocation and Worker Adjustment Assistance and the Trade Adjustment Assistance programs. For several years the administration has been trying to kill the Trade Adjustment Assistance program, saying workers can be covered by other programs.
But the move has been fought by organized labor, which has complained that the government has drawn the program`s guidelines to disqualify at least half the workers who file for the benefits.
Under the program for dislocated workers, an estimated 1.2 million people annually would be served. They could use regular training programs or they could take advantage of a novel proposal for training grants of up to $3,000. The grants could be applied at any qualified facility such as a community college or trade school.
In another innovation, the program would continue the unemployment benefits for workers who have entered training programs but no longer qualify for jobless benefits. They would be able to receive the income support for up to an added year on top of the benefits they have already received.
At least $335 million yearly would be set aside to specifically help workers who lose their jobs as a result of the North American Trade Agreement, which has yet to be approved by Congress.
For youths, the plan would create these new programs:
– A youth-training corps that would set up 25 centers similar to the 30 Job Corps sites around the country and handle 43,000 additional youths annually. This would cost $200 million in its first year, and $385 million when in full operation.
– A treat-and-train program that would offer mostly residential care for an added 28,000 youths with drug problems. It would cost $100 million yearly. – A National Youth Apprenticeship Program that would offer voluntary training for high school students and recent graduates and help communities design skills-training programs. It would cost $100 million yearly.
The Junior Reserve Office Training program, which coordinates military education programs for public and private schools, would be doubled to add 1,500 new units and would include as many as 225,000 additional students.
Sen. David Boren (D-Okla.), who is sponsoring a bill that would bring back the Civilian Conservation Corps of the 1930s, said the Bush proposal ”is a step in the right direction, but it needs to be broadened.”
He urged the administration to also pay attention to welfare reform and to create productive jobs ”for those who are not yet ready for training, (but who) need to learn work habits”
David Wyss, chief economist for DRI-McGraw Hill of Lexington, Mass., said the added money in the job-training program ”isn`t very much, and that is the problem.”
”There will clearly be a lot of dislocation coming along in the next few years, and one of the problems will be finding jobs,” he explained.
Bush was criticized by Alan Reynolds, an economist with the conservative Hudson Institute in Indianapolis, for attempting to spend more federal money on job programs that should rely instead on private initiative.
”If they (workers) don`t have the incentive to do it, subsidizing them won`t make it happen,” Reynolds said.
Sar Levitan, an economics professor at George Washington University and an expert on job-training programs, was skeptical of Bush`s ambitions to commit the nation to a more-expensive, more-exhaustive job-training effort.
”All of a sudden he is finding religion when a few months ago he said we didn`t need more money for these programs,” he said. ”Somebody might think it has something to do with Nov. 3.”