The problem of outsourcing has cemented job retraining education as an issue of top importance, yet it is something that is not publicly discussed often. Bush, however, is firmly behind the idea of retraining and has mentioned it on several campaign stops in those folksy "Ask Bush" sessions, although the administration's actions have not exactly added up to Bush's retraining advocation. Earlier this year the Labor Department made it more difficult for workers in lower population states to receive federal grants to attain job retraining by striking the states' ability to put laid-off persons from small companies together to reach the minimum 50-person threshold for federal retraining aid. Former manufacturing workers in states such as Iowa have been hit particularly hard by this new modus operandi and are currently feeling the full brunt of the economy's stagnation. Bush has also suggested a $151 million cut to job retraining programs this year, even though the economy has not yet emerged from its sickbed.

In a global economy where outsourcing is inevitable, an administration cannot skimp on retraining programs as the Bush administration has — Howard Rosen, head of the Trade Adjustment Assistance Coalition even claims retraining programs should have their funding doubled. The administration seems to not be interested in abating outsourcing, as their reluctance to close the corporate tax loopholes that promote the practice seems to suggest, so one would think they would have tackled retraining in a way befitting true free trade proponents, but they simply haven't. Social Democratic Corporatist states in Europe, such as Denmark, have adjusted nicely to the new global economic system through their promotion and funding of far-reaching retraining programs, which is absolutely required when a country's leadership commits an economy to the whims of global change. However, the United States is much larger and more complex than any of the small Social Democratic European countries and it, quite possibly, may not be able to undertake a policy of unabated outsourcing no matter the funds put into retraining programs.

Kerry and Edwards have claimed that they will close the tax loopholes in order to cease large numbers of jobs from being outsourced while increasing funding for retraining programs within communities, which is the only effective way to tackle the problem. The Bush administration's acceptance and even promotion of outsourcing (Bush's top economic adviser claimed outsourcing is a good thing for the American worker earlier this year) puts them in an impossible bind. In order to spur true economic growth they would have to fund an impossibly large retraining program, which by itself is against Conservative nature (even if they can spend $120 billion on a misguided foreign invasion.) The only way to satiate the economic burdens brought about by the outsourcing epidemic is to limit outsourcing itself — it cannot be stopped completely — and couple that with retraining programs that are adequately, but not overly, funded. The Kerry/Edwards ticket is the only serious one promoting such a plan.