Coming on the heels of last month’s pathetic jobs report, two additional analyses released today further underscore that Bush administration economic policies have failed America's workers and their families and are leading the nation down the wrong path.

The nation's record-setting trade deficit in June, up 58 percent over the same month two years ago, is damning confirmation of the administration's failed trade policies. Over this same period of explosive import growth, we lost almost one million manufacturing jobs, and 2.7 million since President Bush took office. At this rate, we will end 2004 with a whopping, record-breaking $575 billion trade deficit, nearly one-fourth of that with China. We simply cannot grow a strong economy that benefits all working families with trade practices that siphon off good jobs from America's workers and encourage America's corporations to roam the globe in search of the cheapest labor and lousiest working conditions they can find.

Nor can we provide economic security for working families with tax policies that shower those least in need with the greatest benefit, while shifting more of the tax burden onto the middle class. The CBO finding that the wealthiest one percent of Americans have received fully one-third of the benefit from the Bush tax cuts­­—a tax cut this year alone for the wealthiest households that was 78 times greater than for the typical family—only reinforces how skewed this administration's policies are.

George Bush may be America's first president with a business degree, but his management of the American economy has left most American families worse off than they were when he took office. America needs a new economic team that will put working men and women and their families first.

For information: Denise Mitchell 202-637-5018