Letters to the Editor
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No, Check *Your* Calendars
the hemorrhaging of jobs and deficits began under bush.
Wrong. It's been going on for years. A quick visit to the Bureau of Labor Statistics shows that, just from the raw numbers:
Mfg
Employment 1/
Year (000)
1979 19,426
1980 18,733
1985 17,819
1990 17,695
1995 17,241
2000 17,263
2001 16,441
2002 15,259
2003 14,510
2004 14,329
2005 (1st Qtr) 14,258(p)
Keep in mind our population has grown substantially since 1979, so these numbers are even more alarming. They also don't reflect the quality of the jobs - we've traded a lot of heavy industry with highly-skilled, highly-paid labor for really low-skilled, low-paying jobs, like the assembly of manufactured components or frozen food factories (yes, Virginia, the cheeze poof factory workers who dump MSG into the bag are considered part of the "manufacturing" sector).
Trade deficit figures have been even more grim, for two decades now. So have personal, local, state and federal budget deficits, in spite of some accounting trickery and raiding the Social Security trust.