From: clarinews@clarinet.com (STEVEN HEILBRONNER)
Newsgroups: clari.news.gov.usa,clari.news.politics,biz.clarinet.sample,clari.news.top
Followup-to: biz.clarinet.sample
Subject: Bush promotes job training program
Keywords: usa federal, government, politics
Date: Tue, 14 Apr 92 21:14:00 PDT
ACategory: washington
Slugword: bush
Priority: major
Format: regular
ANPA: Wc: 794; Id: z0293; Sel: xxngw; Adate: 4-15-1215aed; Ver: sked
Codes: yngwrxx., ynp.rxx.
Note: (Editors: repeating earlier story)

	WASHINGTON (UPI) -- President Bush, appealing to recession-weary
workers, has unveiled details of a modest job training program he
announced in January.
	Appearing Tuesday at a machine tool factory in the shadow of
Detroit's sagging auto industry, Bush asked Congress to approve an
initiative streamlining vocational programs and a separate measure
providing high school students with job training.
	Meanwhile, Bush said he would begin a pilot program in six states,
costing $1.5 million, and offer states $4 million in incentives to 
``bring together disparate elements'' of their vocational programs.
	Officials traveling with Bush said the initiatives would cost about
$110 million to implement, though there was great uncertainty over the
price tag.
	``Our current job training system is kind of a crazy-quilt of good
intentions,'' Bush told several hundred workers at the Giddings & Lewis
machine tool plant in Fraser, Mich., outside Detroit. They were joined
by members of the Macomb County Chamber of Commerce.
	``We owe every American who seeks to climb the ladder of economic
advantage the finest job, the finest job the training system in the
world can produce,'' he said.
	Bush was accompanied on the political trip, which was to feature a
fund-raising dinner, by an assortment of campaign aides.
	Robert Teeter, the president's poll-taker who is a Michigan resident,
acknowledged that the recession could make Michigan ``a tough state'' to
win in the November election.
	There is, however, ``no reason to believe we can't carry it,'' he
said.
	When a reporter suggested to Teeter that it was cynical to unveil a
program that had been previously announced, Teeter said, ``There is
nothing cynical about talking about what you are doing as president one
time or five times or twenty times. There is no one-time-only rule and
there shouldn't be.''
	Bush said in his speech at the Giddings plant that he hoped Congress
would approve his proposals ``before Congress adjourns for the year.''
	Yet Bush reiterated that Congress would likely fall short.
	``As you know, I'm the first to admit that I can't always count on
Congress to act, no matter how great the urgency,'' Bush said.
	Bush's domestic aide, Roger Porter, said the White House decided to
begin a six-state pilot program for vocational training because Congress
would be slow to act.
	``If we sat around and waited for the Congress to do everything, very
little would be done,'' he said.
	Yet, it was Bush who delayed unveiling the program for three months.
	Bush's visit to Michigan came one month after he won the state's
presidential by 3-to-1 over challenger Patrick Buchanan.
	The president boasted that his much-ridiculed trade mission to Japan
last January would have enormous benefits to Detroit, lifting U.S. auto
parts exports from $9 billion to $19 billion a year by 1994.
	He said the Japanese would buy more of everything, from glass and
computer hardware to paper and other assorted auto parts.
	Bush also told the friendly audience that he would not improve
mileage performance standards for cars, which consumers want and Detroit
opposes. And he trumpeted his ``cash for klunkers'' program, in which
motorists can sell their old polluting cars to businesses.
	One measure certain not to endear himself to the auto workers and
other laborers was his decision to sign, on Monday, a directive that
prevents unions from using the dues of non-union employees for political
activities or candidates that those workers oppose.
	The decree comes more than three years after the Supreme Court ruled
that workers may withhold a portion of their dues for political
purposes.
	But the directive angered labor leaders, who said Monday it is a
clear attempt to weaken Democratic Party candidates, usually supported
heavily with union money.
	The trip marked the first time Bush traveled under a self-imposed
directive. Last week, Bush, hoping to highlight the sleaze factor on
Capitol Hill, told his staff that business trips he takes involving 
``political'' activities, such as fund-raisers, should be entirely paid
for by the Bush/Quayle '92 campaign.
	Previously, the White House arrived at a complicated formula in which
part of his air fare and expenses were paid for by the campaign based on
the amount of time or the number of events he spent campaigning.
	The campaign reimbursement, even at 100 percent, does not come close
to a full accounting of Bush's costs, which run hundreds of thousands of
dollars a day. Lawmakers have feasted on the subject in recent weeks to
deflect criticism over the House check-bouncing and post office
scandals.
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