Elated By Jobs Growth, Bush Speaks in West Virginia
By Pete Yost
The Associated Press
Friday, April 2, 2004; 1:06 PM

HUNTINGTON, W.Va. -- Buoyed by the strongest monthly job growth in four years, President Bush told several hundred applauding supporters Friday that the economy is growing and people are finding work.

"Today the statistics show that we added 308,000 jobs for the month of March," Bush said at Marshall University.[P6: so in March, the jobs nationwide were approximately 1/7th of the jobs lost in the single state Bush was speaking to. Pitiful.]

The president, who led a discussion on job retraining, appeared in a state where Democratic officials have blamed him for the loss of more than 2 million jobs during the past three and a half years.

The Labor Department said the nation's unemployment rate had edged up from 5.6 to 5.7 percent in March but that the economy had experienced a big jump in jobs. White House spokesman Scott McClellan called the jobs report "a powerful confirmation that our economy is growing stronger." [P6: The economy is growing stronger, when the unemployment rate INCREASED in the face of these 308G new jobs. Pitiful.]

The president and Democrat John Kerry are tied among likely voters in West Virginia, according to a recent poll by the American Research Group of Manchester, N.H. Voter registration in the state favors Democrats over Republicans by a 2-to-1 margin.

Across the street from the president's motorcade as he prepared to leave were several hundred protesters, some of them carrying Kerry signs. One sign read, "Where are the jobs?"

"There's more we need to do," but "the policies are working," said Bush, who was making his seventh appearance in the battleground state since becoming president. In 2000, Bush won the state. It also was Bush's second appearance on the college campus in the past week-and-a-half to promote his "Jobs for the 21st Century" program.

Reacting to the jobs report, Kerry said in a statement: "After three years of punishing job losses, the one-month job creation announced today is welcome news for America's workers. I hope it continues. But for too many families, living through the worst job recovery since the Great Depression has been, and continues to be, far too painful."

Among Bush's proposals is $250 million in grants for community colleges that partner with employers seeking higher-skilled workers.[P6: To solve whose problem? The employers of those who are out of work? Or just the political one…after all, there are lots of higher-skilled workers who are unemployed, so why would an employer spend money training someone (or even just wait for them to be ready) instead of hiring someone who already has the skills? Pitiful.]

The president said the country needs to match job training with the jobs that are available.