(Lenny Ignelzi/AP)Among the avalanche of federally funded programs President Trump wants to hollow out is the Manufacturing Extension Partnership. It's a modest operation that exists solely to help small and medium-size companies create and maintain good-paying American manufacturing jobs — the kind of jobs the president promised to protect. Then-Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker argued in 2015 that the program would help revitalize American manufacturing. The day before Trump unveiled his budget cuts, he told a Detroit audience that he would fight for American jobs, particularly manufacturing jobs. “We've lost one-third of our manufacturing jobs,” he said of the economic climate since the North American Free Trade Agreement was signed in 1994.

Source: Washington Post March 16, 2017 17:55 UTC