(PAI) – Many of our nation’s lawmakers are acknowledging that hamburger assembly is not the same as auto assembly.

On Sept. 17, the Republican-led House voted to ban a Bush Administration brainstorm – counting fast food jobs as factory work – in order to improve job and economic numbers.

After a brief debate, lawmakers approved a provision by Rep. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) ordering presidential economists to drop the reclassification of burger-builders.. The language in the bill is almost laughable, but so is the original Economic Report of the President released earlier this year which suggested that workers at McDonald’s and similar chains, because they assemble hamburgers with trimmings and other meal components, could be reclassified as factory workers.

The adopted House bill reads in part, “None of the funds available… may be used by the Council of Economic Advisers to produce an Economic Report of the President regarding the inclusion of employment at a retail fast food restaurant as part of the definition of manufacturing employment.”

Allowing such a change would increase the number of U.S. factory jobs. The U.S. has lost more than 2.5 million factory jobs – in traditional factories, such as those making cars, refrigerators and airplanes – in the last four years.

The Bush economic report asked, on page 73: “When a fast food restaurant sells a hamburger, for example, is it providing a ‘service’ or is it combining inputs to ‘manufacture’ a product?”

Brown responded, “So here is what we got, according to the Bush administration, who knows they have a problem with the loss of manufacturing jobs, we got the kid in the restaurant at McDonald’s or Burger King, whatever. He is setting up an assembly line.”

Brown’s ban may not survive House-Senate negotiations over money for the economic council and other White House offices, said Rep. Ernest Istook (R-Okla.), who guided the bill in the House. He explained that negotiators may have to dump many amendments – including Brown’s and another setting safety standards for Mexican and Canadian trucks – to produce a bill that Bush will sign.