Talk about egg on your face (boy it looks good). Just hours before the Bush Administration was set to announce the nomination of its long awaited manufacturing Czar, or the new Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Manufacturing and Services the Kerry Campaign revealed that the nominee, one Anthony F. Raimondo, chairman and chief executive of Behlen Manufacturing Co. of Columbus, NE had himself shipped U.S. jobs overseas to China. It seems Raimondo’s company laid off some 75 U.S. workers in 2002, four months after publicizing plans to build a 3 million dollar 150,000 sq foot factory in northwest China, which employees 180 people.
I wonder if the Bush Administration will be able to find a viable Republican “Captain of Industry” candidate without the stain of manufacturing and or service job loss on their hands? And what exactly with the Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Manufacturing and Services do anyway? Will the position be mostly symbolic, or will it actually produce a workable blueprint to keep U.S. manufacturing and medium to high wage service jobs in the U.S.? Here’s a hint: start with a workable reform of the U.S. Health Care industry; in case you (Republican’s) haven’t noticed, for the average American it is no longer working. Hello!
