in some way i think a free market perspective, it's a bottom-up process largely driven by consumers. where that process and signals get lost is when central planners attempt to direct capital and labor so that people don't -- it's not consumers saying where the jobs of tomorrow are or rather consumers saying where the jobs of tomorrow are. >> you can redefend yo-yo if you want to but mr. mitchell, you say that adding another $500 billion in federal spending will result in real benefits to the economy. in fact, you said it may be risky. would you like to expand on

that? >> sure. and this may be an opportunity, i have an additional slide. we might bring that up. so i'm going to try to make this as non-wonky as possible. promi. so one of the things that is important when you evaluate stimulus measures is what economists call the multiplier. what this chart shows, a bar represents a separate study and the important thing to keep in mind, if the results suggest that the multiplier is largier than one, if it's less than one, however, it detracts from, crowds out, diminishes economic activity. the horizontal bar there is the

1 mark. each one of these vertical bars represents the high and low estimate of a different study. this is a sample of recent studies over the last several years. now, that does not at all to me look like a slam dunk we know that stimulus always works. it multiplies the private sector. to me, i look at that and see an enormous amount of disagreement. i see even within stud diies, ie estimates that have a wide range. so you look at that and you can see -- by the way, i know that the median estimate is below one, that stimulus actually crowds out economic activity. but in some of the worst examples, it can destroy -- $1 of spending can destroy as much as $2.80. that's what i mean when i say that this is risky. i'm not saying that there are not well-respected economists that say that this is helpful but it's a risk. and one other quick point, there are many things on which

economists do agree. benefits of free trade, the fiscal problems with the u.s. over the long run. you're going to find widespread agreement. you find lots of things on which economists agree. fiscal stimulus is njust not on of them. >> thank you. your time has expired. our work on very much. this calculus business. i'm going to stay away from it. it wasn't my strong suits in college. i would like to ask miss johnson, i commend you for bringing forth the family business for 60 years and being successful but i -- looking at your testimony, you do bring up, of course, all these impediments. you talk about how osha, of course, is troublesome,

frustrating, and confusing and many issues you have to keep up with. of course, you certainly feel that we could do without the epa and their programs of slowing down job creation and on and on. but let me -- and i could ask you a lot of questions about both of those. let me just ask you about your testimony regarding the national labor relations board. you testified in your testimony, you contend that the nlrb unlawfully issued a rule regarding the posting of notices on employee rights. first, does your company post notices of employee rights regarding the minimum wage, osha, and workers' compensation and laws prohibiting discrimination? >> yes, we absolutely do.

as a federal contractor it's been a requirement of ours. >> do you consider these postings to be burdensome? >> burdensome in the sense that there are inspectors that would come through and verify that our posters are displayed, that they are the right size, that they are not hidden away in a dark corner somewhere. the fact that there doesn't seem to be trust. >> and the good companies do suffer from the bad companies because they are not all as great as your company esteems to be. in some places they do put them in a dark room or where no one can get in, they tell me. let me ask you this, then, is posting one additional notice regarding employee rights on their labor law burdensome? >> we've been doing it for many,

many years, so it's become a practice of ours. i think that for those companies that have not been required to, it could be a burden, yes. >> your testimony says that the nlrb acted without legal authority to require this notice posting regulation. you're probably aware that the national labor relations act says that the board shall have the authority from time to time to make, amend, and are rescind such rules and regulations to carry out the provisions of the act. what prohikts the nlrb of their rights, whether it's rights of labor people or the employer? >> women, i just think that it's adding another burden to businesses and that it's an example of overreaching when

there have been laws in place that companies have been complying with and it's a perception that businesses have that independent agencies are overreaching in their authority at times. >> wouldn't you agree that if all workers are -- know the rules and feel that everything -- that that really develops harmony, we ran a small business of about 50 people and had to put up all of those regulations and had to let the osha people come in and they used to do test of decibels of soi sound. it was a problem because we had rotating action in a large printing action and workers didn't want to wear the pieces but it couldn't be over 80 decibels. so it was a problem but it was to protect the worker. >> absolutely. >> and we enforce that for the worker, even though it was a nuisance but i

overall -- until my time expires, you also mentioned that the nlrb for representation is filed and actual elections are held, you call this ambush elections and i just wondered if you could elaborate on that. >> i would be happy to. as a small business -- this is a term overused but people are our number one asset. that's what makes our company great. if companies have access to capital and can invest in technology, that's not going to make them a world class technology. and over the last 60 years, when people are our number one priority as their safety and in

fact on a weekly basis the number one metric that he reports out on are any kind of safety occurrences or accidents. and in fact last year one of our key metrics was to improve our safety record by 50%. so that it is less than two incidents per year and that's a goal that we were able to achieve at one of our divisions last year and we're going forward. but without a doubt, people are our greatest asset. their safety is number one. >> the gentleman's time has expired. mr. wahlberg? >> thank you, mr. chair kmman, thank you to the panelists for being here today. miss johnson, it's a pleasure to hear from you again. i think you were here back in 2007. i sat and listened to you extole the wonderful passion of manufacturing and you going into

middle schools telling students what they could experience and so i would like and just dealing with excessive government and impingement and let me ask you some going through tough times and hear from the governor how we're turning that down. seeing the value of manufacturing again. i hear so often from my small business people of the challenges that they face with uncertainty and ever increasing burdensome regulations. not just simply regulations that are not necessary but the advancing and increasing more and more regulations.

it was a little more than a year ago that our president announced his intentions to review and repeal a number of regulations. have you seen in review and is it a fact that it's working or has the review caused less uncertainty in your field? >> thank you for that question. i very much appreciate the compliments and the fact that you can remember me from 2007. >> at my age, that's a very important thing. >> for my age. you know, no, i have not seen any of these rules being retracted. in fact, i would just recommend to the committee that at this point in time we just stop, look, and listen and take it all in as we've been trying to climb out of this recession. what we hear constantly in the news is more and more regulations coming our way and

we take the health care law, for example, the only thing that we know at this time is that our costs have gone up when in fact regulations have not been written yet and i was reading in "the wall street journal" just last week that it says that president obama's regulators are currently have some 149 major rules under way which are those that cost more than $100 million. so my experience is, no, i have not yet seen that. >> okay. let me continue on with that. you noted in your testimony that washington regulations are time consuming, complex, uncertain, changing, i guess from that, can you estimate how much it costs a business to hire experts or counsel to navigate your business through the maze of regulations? >> well, currently we have two different consulting firms that we work with in regards to

environmental compliance and a labor attorney on a retainer and between those three it is well over $150,000. >> just for those -- >> yes. >> -- areas? >> yes. >> do you receive any positive help from the federal agencies in assisting you with compliance and understanding? >> you know, that's a great question to ask because the times that i am in washington and the opportunities that i have to meet with different representatives of these agencies, there is so much work being done to inform employers what's going on in washington and how they are held. and so i know, for example, at the manufacturing meeting we met with representatives of the epa and they said that they are redesigning their website so we can real-time access to projects going on and there needs to be some way to get information out of the beltway to the employer so that we understand it.

but at this point in time, we have not yet sought any help. >> or found any that is available? >> or found any that is available. >> what percentage of your business is overseas? >> very little. we were some what fortunate that in the fact that we're split about 50/50 in terms of military and aerospace and a lot of that has remained here. however, with our fear as some of our customers are helping companies overseas develop their aerospace industry, that the supply chains are going to exist there as well and we have no intentions of moving our business overseas. >> thank you. >> mr. scott? >> thank you, mr. chairman. mr. bernstein, we heard earlier today about investments and education needed to fill the

70,000 vacancies in michigan. can you tell me the economic benefits of investments in education? >> sure. it's probably one of the best understood and most widely agreed upon relations in labor economics for every extra year that a person has of formal schooling, their earnings are typically 7 or 8% higher and the idea that higher skills, earning, have become all that more important in recent years as technology and employer and skill dep mands have increased the pace. so the fact that we're helping workers improve their relations.

now, i will say one point, if you just have the education with no jobs, you're all dressed up with nowhere to go. there's the supply side, the jobs, and demand side. too many people chases too few jobs. >> the 70,000 jobs in michigan, it wasn't clear but it sounded like a lot of them were going unfilled because the employers couldn't find people properly qualified. >> certainly heard that recently. i think there are definitely pockets throughout the country where there is a mismatch between the skills that the workforce on the ground has, employers have. but we definitely have a demand side problem as well. historically there are one or two job openings for one or two unemployed for job openings in recent months.

that job ratio is as high as six. it's a very tough game of musical chairs, broadly speaking. >> and it's also even worse when there's a mismatch? >> yeah -- and exactly. >> and if you invest in education, that has economic stimulative effect, too. if you gave money to a community college, for example, to improve educational opportunities, could you say a word about what that would do to employment? i mean, they would have to hire people. >> well, for years -- and this committee has been in the thick of it. the federal government has played a role in helping to support training programs. what we now know, summarizing a research that i submitted in my testimony s. that the type of program that you describe, congressman, are among the most effective. we have found -- it's called

sectoral employment and training strategies. ranking member miller opportunity bill also speaks to this sweet spot in education training policy. the idea is to link up employers at the most local level with community colleges so that the employers themselves can identify in the most granular terms the kinds of jobs that they are going to be fielding in the coming months and years. it's a different approach to a blanket soft skills, there you go. it's a demand of the future labor opportunities. that kind of sector ral employment strategy i think is the way forward. >> and the community college when it receives money for the training, people have to buy book r books and even that

expenditure has short-term positive effects on the economy? >> i think that's right. clearly there is very much a demand for precisely this kind of training and, in fact, if you look at the constraints -- we talk about community colleges in this town. if you look at one of the real constraints in that community colleges face, they are way over capacity in many places throughout the country. part of that is people are going back for schooling and part of that is emphasis for communities like -- >> the state and local governments have been laying off people because of their balanced budget requirements. can you say a word about the importance of the federal government providing revenue sharing so that they would stop laying people off? >> absolutely. we've seen this almost every month for the past few years. we've added private sector jobs while the public shed jobs over the past few years and

it's because they are facing budget constraints. one of the most successful programs in the recovery act was state relief for towns and cities preventing layoffs of the police and the teachers and the sanitation workers -- key work es in the community. in the jobs act, the president provided an extension of exactly that type of help. it is very much in the interest of providing some boost for what's still a fragile recovery. >> the gentleman's time has expired. ms. woolsey. >> thank you, mr. chairman. you know, we will be hearing a lot more as we have today about burdensome regulations and how the federal regulations impact negatively on business, and i think that one that we are going to hear about over and over is osha's proposal to develop an

injur injure and illness prevention program, and plan requiring employers to routinely find and fix hazards before the workers are hurt instead of waiting for osha to find the violations. and the opposition, the opponents will claim that this is simply going to pile up paperwork and be a regulation that they don't need. but to justify the opposition,m study by rand corporation of california's illness and injury prevention program and found that it did have an impact on worker safety, because it is indeed preventative, but what the rand corporation found as noted in a memo that the press release actually that they sent is that california's program can help prevent injuries to workers, but only if it is adequately enforced.

their press release said thatct identify and abate hazards, and indeed, there is decline in accidents and injuries. and mr. chairman, 20% is not a minor impact. it is not a burdensome regulation. it saves $74 billion every year in workers' compensationat in fs could cut 24% off of this cost, it would be $15 billion a year to improve their competitiveness. so, i don't want to trivialize the illness and injury prevention programs. i want us to step up to the fact that will help and make a difference. with that, mr. chairman, i respectfully request leave to place the january 26th, 27th

rand release into the record. >> without objection. >> ms. johnson. are you the beneficiary of a small woman-owned businesses of the federal women small business owned contract? >> yes. >> has it worked for you or been an undue burden or difficult to comply with? >> not necessarily, and i think that in fact it probably works more in favor for the customers who have some offset programs where they have to divert or, you know, contract with, minority-own can -- minority owned, or women-owneded businesses. >> so there are contracts that actually work in favor of those like yourself and others? >> you bet there are, and i

would agree with the injury and illness preventative program as we well. there is no doubt that there are regulations that are necessary, and we are not disputing that by any means, but we are talking about the difficult and uncertain economic times that we are in right now, and just with so much that we hear in the news and the media and the noise, it is just that we need to stop for a second and figure it out. >> all right. i appreciate you. so dr. m figuring out, can you list the regulations that you'd eliminate from the most to least important? >> sure. thank you for asking, because i think that this gives us an opportunity to highlight something that is important to understand about regulations. both on the left and the right, there is a tendency to think about the cost of a regulation is the burden of filling out the paperwork, right? >> i guess. or -- >> sorry? >> or the savings. >> and people will weigh that

against the savings, and so conservatives will go and count up, you know, the cost of complying -- >> we are on yellow light, will you list the regulations that you would eliminate from most to least important? >> well, i would say that the regulations that are most important to eliminate are those that favor entrenched interests, because that's the hidden cost of regulation. >> so, example? what is an entrenched interest? >> this is work that has won nobel prizes. >> give me an example of that regulation. >> sure. i think that there is a lot of opportunity in health care law for example to look at ways in which the regulations that were passed quickly an apparently to subject not analysis -- >> example. >> privileged favored industries. >> like the insurance industry. thank you, mr. chairman. >> precisely. >> the gentle lady's time has expire and we are wrapped up with the questions here and before i thank and excuse the panel, i'd like to recognize mr.

payne for any closing remarks he might have. >> well, thank you very much. i think that you have all added to the hearing today. i appreciate your coming and spending time. i also like to commend the governors. i thought that they had a very balanced approach, and i think that we really need to see how we can get america back on the job track. i think that a lot of the bickering that goes on is really discouraging to american people. there are things that we can do together to help our nation in this time, and i just hope that at some point in time the congress will come together and try to put american people first. also, i'd like to agree with one of the governors that mentioned the secretary lahood was doing an outstanding job. i have to agree that he's one of the more accessible and

energetic and forward-thinking members of the cabinet. i want to be on the record. i thank you and yield back. >> i thank the gentleman and of course, ray lahood has been a friend of ours for a long time and shows the value of the value of the education that you get here in congress when you move to the cabinet. i want to thank the witnesses. i think that it underscored some of the differences that we have and some of the places that we come together, and as we mentioned in the opening remarks, there is an opportunity that we can come to agreement and in streamlining and consolidating the programs as the president suggested to work better and match up the needs of employers with the output, if you will, of schools. the testimony also underscored some fundamental differences. sometimes it is bickering that we get engaged in here, and that is really unfortunate, and sometimes it is fundamental differences in what we think is best for the american people, and best for the economy and the best way to go to get the

americans back to works and that debate will continue, and you been helpful in our consideration of those things, and again, i want to thank the witnesses, and there being no further business -- committee stands adjourned. we as explorers of literature and readers of literature have a responsibility. and for those who are

discovering literature have a responsibility do you not? okay. can you create anything that you want in the world that you create in literature reflecting history or not and feel comfortable in the creation or can you presencer yourself to decide that i can't offed for anybody so i can't write this thing? this weekend from american history, william foster on the n-words in place. also on american history tv, he changed the reading habits of americans. a look at tain fluns of time -- a look at the influence of time incorporated founder henry lewis. sunday at 5:00 p.m., january 1901, the oil boon hits and lucas gusher makes texas a leading oil producing i state. visit the boon towns and streets of beaumont, texas, this weekend on c-span3. thiss