what about the states? arizona has stepped out, south carolina is dealing with their own laws. do the states have a right to control their own destiny with immigration, to preclude the federal government from either doing nothing at all or stepping in and doing too much. >> sarah aarizona, florida, alae the states that have kind of stepped out as their own states. florida didn't actually do it because it would have been devastating to our economy. the issue is to the constitution, there is a really narrow band width of options for states to deal with immigration, because inherently you're talking about international

discussions and flows across national borders, and so out of frustration that congress isn't doing anything and that they really are only allowed to do some things, they're focusing on the enforcement piece and have had devastating consequences for their economy. georgia has a labor report out, alabama has a labor report out that has been very harmful to their economy because in swinging wildly out of frustration that washington hasn't done something, they've passed bills that are causing their businesses and their economies great harm. they've seen an evacuation of workers, they have experimented with every pilot project imaginable that have floated with ways of the jobs welfare

does. they lasted until lunchtime. so from florida's perspective, we watched very closely the alabama and georgia model, and it has given us a real world/realtime example of what happens when you get these state-based policies wrong, and it rein forces the need to get it right and get the rabbit not running 50 different directions. >> we heard from governor

maldonado, and he said it passionate passionately, and i think we have to hear this again. he said the latinos in california, which are a great percentage of latinos in this country, do not want amnesty. and i think we have to listen to that. another thing that i don't think we do that well is latinos do not talk about border security. i'm an american, i'm an american hispanic. i want a strong border. and i don't think we do enough -- i want to ask, are we doing a good enough job about the community talking about immigration reform instead of listening to these politicians who aren't talking about it at all? >> i think you're absolutely right, and you bring up a really good point. i don't know what amnesty is, because any time that someone has proposed a solution that doesn't sound like amnesty to me, it sounds like pretty punishing or someone calls it

amnesty. so amnesty has become the one word that could kill an idea. oh, that's amnesty, you know? which is very dangerous, because it really confuses people and people don't then know how they should feel about a certain issue. at one time they were calling the fence a wall. now, when i get asked, and i've been asked in groups in texas and groups in california, how do you feel about the wall? you know, to kind of put me on the spot. how do you feel about border security? well, you know, i think every country in the world has the right and the obligation to secure their border. you know, it's not against immigrants, it's just securing your border. and you don't have to be apologetic about it. and i said that. but it's not a wall, and it's not a wall that goes all the way across, it's a fence.

does it make sense in a functional basis? probably a little bit, but the reality is that 40, 50% of the illegals that come in come in in airports. so, you know, the airplane just goes right over the wall. i worry like you. you know, terms like border security have to be understood. some people say that. i believe in my heart that governor romney says it because he believes it, but some people say it as a way of saying border security. let's forget about everything else, it's border security. so you have to watch that. that's another one of those buzz words. and immigration is just absolutely full of buzz words. and people are tremendously confused. but most people in this country, and governor romney said so, are

pro-immigration because most people in this country are immigrants. so i hope people are seeing what you're seeing, this play with words, you know. >> if i could just add briefly, border security is not simply about immigration. border security is about stopping threats coming into our nation. border security is about stopping illegal drugs, border security is about stopping other items that can threaten our nation, whether they be biologicals or other items, and so border security, and i think it's dangerous to say it's only for stopping immigration. >> question here? >> i am from texas. i used to be totally against the dream act, but the more i thought about it and the more i got to know the dreamers, i kind

of started changing my mind. can somebody independent explain what really the dream act is, and also including, we always talk about these kids. they are not only kids. there are people in their 30s. they came here when they were mino minors, and the longer we wait for some kind of solution for these kids who came here as minors, these minors are becoming adults. the truth is, can somebody really explain so whoever is listening to this panel can really understand why it's important that it's not only for kids but for people, because we're dealing with people who came here as children, and they didn't ask to come but they are here and this is their country. >> on twitter at the same time is a question about the dream act saying, what do you think of it, and if it needs to be tweaked, how so? how would change it to make it more successful? >> basically what the dream act

says is that kids who were brought here at a young age, you know, to be determined what that is, so they are not u.s. born, foreign born, by an illegal parent but have grown up here, have gone through their schooling here -- like you, i've met some of the dreamers, valedictorians of their high school and so forth, literally came when they were three years old and so on. so without a route for those individuals to either continue their post-secondary education lawfully at any price in this country and chart a path forward is, in my view, humane and smart. to make those kids now say, well, you know, you have no opportunity here currently in our military or in higher education, you know, you're out of luck. so this act would aim to regulari regularize, legalize, whatever word you want to use, those individuals who can go on a pathway either to military

service or to post-secondary education. i want to remind you just quickly, as i said, and this is again to back this myth. this is not a huge number of individuals. i think it gets overstated. the vast, vast majority of kids in our schools who are limited english speakers are u.s. citizens. and we owe them an education. >> anyone else? we're going to have time for one more -- >> the point of the age struck some people as a little bit odd. and that's why some people in congress were just -- i think it was up to 30 or 35 which the questi questioner mentioned. the dream act, by the way, was used exactly for political purposes. it was a bill that if you looked through all the facts, there was some things in there that were just very difficult to accept. but if you didn't accept it, boy, you weren't accepting the dream act.

you're against young student immigrants. it didn't matter that that clause 35 was the craziest thing in the world. they were setting you up, and they were setting republicans up, and that happens all the time. >> we have time for one more. >> same thing, the dream act has been the most politically manipulated tool in this whole debate in a very cynical way, particularly on the left. and i think what you see some consensus for is this military service concept as a starting point, and the rest of it being a topic for the broader discussion about immigration reform. >> thank you. last question. >> i appreciate it. jules minoz. a lot of folks who come here legally, it takes a long time to do it. being from puerto rico, it's not

sensitive to my community. i started looking at it. there's ice, there's customs, there's border patrol, there's a department of justice. maybe it's because there's too much government. do you think there should be nine immigration-related industries or agencies to regulate immigration? do you think that's contributing to a broken immigration system and why it takes so long, the process to become legal? >> if i could just support your question, i was the federal prosecutor, and when there are immigration issues, i had to get out the directory and start figuring out which agency does this and which agency does that and which agency does that. and when even the folks on the inside have trouble figuring out the system, that really speaks to it is a very, very broken system, and it's time to change it. >> i just add to that. i remember when we were looking at ag jobs, and you went through the process that you had to do to get a permit for a temporary

agricultural worker, and, you know, it's this agency and that agency and the labor department and they can take 20 days, so it took about four months by which time the harvest would be rotten. so, you know, you're forcing -- by making laws that can't be implemented, you're forcing people to break the law or go out of business. >> on that note, our time sis expired. i want you to join me in thanking the panel. [ applause ]

tonight on the communicators, the third in our series. on this year's electronics show, consumer and policy. john bucci, toyota's vice president for advanced technology and dietr zetsc, had e, head of mercedes benz. the communicators, tonight on cspan-2. main caucuses continue throughout this week. tomorrow there are caucuses in colorado and minnesota. and in missouri, all the major political parties in the state, including republicans, are scheduled to hold presidential primaries tomorrow. republicans will vote in a non-binding primary. with only three of the current presidential candidates on the ballot. newt gingrich is not on the ballot. then missouri republicans will hold caucus on saturday, march 19, to a portion of their

delegates. this weekend, primary candidates in arizona and michigan, followed by washington caucuses the beginning of march. go to c-span.org/campaign2012 and push on the links to join facebook and twitter. a discussion now on the state of u.s. manufacturing from today's washington journal. this is about 45 minutes. >> at the table now is scott paul, who is executive director of the american alliance for manufacturing. thanks for being here, mr. paul. >> thank you. >> we see this headline in usa today which says, manufacturing is a star of the upbeat jobs report that came out friday. so they're talking here about 243,000 overall jobs, but give us a status report on u.s. manufacturing. >> well, manufacturing has been a bright spot for the last couple of years. in january, we created 50,000

manufacturing jobs. that's actually the highest number of manufacturing jobs we've created in any month since august of 1998. so 13 years unprecedented rate. and overall of the last two years, we've created about 300,000 manufacturing jobs which stands in stark contrast to the last decade and the shedding of jobs that we saw, the millions of jobs. >> let's break down that 50,000. we have a slide that we can put on the screen. 50,000 jobs added in january, as our guest just said. in fabricated metal products, the number is 11,000. machinery, another 11,000. motor vehicles and parts, 8,000. give us an idea of the types of jobs created in metal manufacturing. >> there's two things going on here. one is that the automotive sector is very strong, and you've seen strong indications from profits from ford, gm, chrysler, you've seen hiring, you've seen more demand, you've seen increased market share, and so that means more jobs in the

transportation sector. in terms of fabricated metals, consumers have a bit more confidence now, so they're going out, they're buying durable goods, things like washing machines and refrigerators, and that creates a demand for things like fabricated metal. the weakness that you still see is in construction-related manufacturing, and we know that that's been lagging in the construction industry in particular. that shows up in types of manufactured products that go into the construction industry. but otherwise, we've seen relatively good strength over the last two years. >> so moving forward to the next several months or years, where do you see this headed? >> well, i think there are a couple of things that are working in our favor, and i also see a couple head winds. the things working in our favor is it does look like employment is picking up. that means people will be more likely to buy things. that certainly helps the manufacturing sector. the center for automotive research forecasts that there will be about 150, 160,000 jobs

created in manufacturing over the next three years, that's very positive. however, there were a couple of things we don't know. we don't know what congress and the president are going to do on tax breaks that particularly benefit manufacturing. there was a plant and equipment deduction that's been very useful to the industry. we don't know what's going to happen in china and how much growth there's going to be in china or how much china is going to try to export its way out of some sort of a challenge. and third, we don't know what's going to happen in europe and if there is going to be some sort of a resolution to the debt crisis in greece or if there is going to be something that approaches calamity like we saw in this country years ago. >> scott paul is executive director for the american alliance for manufacturing. tell us about the alliance. who do you represent? >> the alliance is pretty neat in washington. it's the american steel union,

which is the largest steel union in america. it represents not only steel workers but workers in the rubber, auto glass, parts, paper, and also some manufacturers that have a collective bargaining arrangement with the steel workers in the steel and in the rubber industries in particular. >> phone number is on the bottom of the screen for our guests. we're going to hear from the president in a minute on manufacturing, but we look forward to your calls for scott paul. you had mentioned the inserts in today's paper sort of goes along with the big rather dramatic ad during the super bowl last night featuring clint eastwood. here assess, usa today's version of the supplement, "it's halftime in america." what does he say and what do you say? >> they interpret it as a campaign ad in some ways, but certainly there are nuances to

it. chrysler last year did this m&m ad, and this is an extension of that. we're back on our feet, we've taken the punch and we can move forward. you've seen a lot of this on madison avenue. you've seen this focus on blue collar work in manufacturing, because i think the politicians understand, these companies understand that americans have a soft spot in their heart for manufacturing. it's been an important part of our past, they know that we've suffered and we're kind of an underdog now, and they want to see us get back on our feet, so i think that's a big part of this. >> before we get to those calls, here's the president from friday. >> beyond preventing a tax hike, we need to do a lot more to create an economy that's built to last. to restore american manufacturing. we need to stop giving tax breaks to companies that ship jobs overseas, give those tax breaks to companies that are investing in plants and equipment and hiring workers right here in the united states of america. that makes a lot of sense.

to make sure our businesses don't have to move overseas to find skilled workers, we've got to invest in education and make sure college is affordable for every hard-working american. >> just a bit of the president there, but scott paul, i want to pick up on the tax part that he mentioned that you mentioned. what are you looking for from manufacturers from the hill, from the president in taxes? >> absolutely. there is a couple things that would be very helpful if they would be extended. one is an up-front deduction for plant and equipment purchases. that's really spurred a lot of innovation, upgrading, and purchasing in the manufacturing sector to make the industry more competitive. it's been wildly successful. and it should be extended in some way. second, there is a deduction in the tax code for manufacturing activity in the united states. the president has proposed expanding that dramatically. that would be incredibly useful to the manufacturing sector, and in some ways, more useful than a corporate tax cut. a corporate tax cut, if you

expense it out, a lot of the benefits would go to the financial services sector and not to manufacturing. if you have a specific tax deduction for manufacturing activity, you're going to target that. it's going to be an ensuring incentive and then the president has talked about this for a few years, but it's also eliminating some tfeatures in the tax code that my encourage offshoring and that goes to pay for some of these other benefits, but i think the tax code he's propo proposing would be particularly useful to the sector to grow employment here. >> we'll hear from mitt romney here in a second. but first, ron, you're on with scott paul. good morning. >> caller: good morning. thank you for your time. i heard the president of singapore over the weekend being interviewed, and singapore is ranked as the number one place in the world to do business. and i was struck when asked what

they attributed their success to, the number one factor was the fact that they educate all of their children based on merit for free. his number two factor was infrastructure. now, the republicans have voted against improving the infrastructure and have actually proposed cutting education. the president of singapore never mentioned corporate income taxes or the capital gains rates, it was not even on his list. and i'd like to know what your feeling is. how would you rank those two factors, infrastructure and education versus corporate tax rates? which one is more important for bringing jobs back to america? >> thank you, ron. >> ron, i think it's a good point. and i would rank them right up there with tax changes. and i would not underestimate the value of reforming education and also doing some serious infrastructure investment. let's talk about education first. we have an education system in this country that's built

towards getting children a four-year college degree, and the testing regime is around that. for kids that want to go into vocational education and who want to work in a manufacturing career, the system has been decimated. and it is a -- it's actual aly shame. it puts us way behind where industrialized countries like germany and japan are, and you hear employees talking about the challenges of finding kids with the right skills. i think the larger problem is that our system is simply not built to provide a pool of talented workers, skilled machinists and welders and factory technicians, especially for these 21st century manufacturing careers. the president has talked about that, and he's talked about it in a skills for the future program, but it needs more resources and it certainly has a lot of private sector cooperation, but it's something that we really do need to dramatically alter in this

country country. on infrastructure, absolutely. we have a second or third rate infrastructure. if we rebuild our infrastruct e infrastructure, and that means our ports, our roads, our railways, there's not only a benefit to construction workers but to commuters for reduced congestion and shorter drive times, but also to the manufacturing sector. it makes manufacturing companies and their logistics much more efficient, it makes us globally competitive. the american society of civil engineers gifves us about a d i infrastructure. we need to be an a and we need investment to get us there. >> lyle, independent for scott paul. good morning. >> caller: good morning. thank you for taking my call. i think the best example of what's happened to american industry is if you study the boeing aircraft situation and the fiasco they've had in trying to manufacture the 787 dreamliner which they outsourced

70% of the work, the real crime is when the head of it was ceo, he gave away a technology that the rest of the world had stolen or not been given, and japan got the majority of that. they're supposed to produce 35% of aircraft. the first airline they built was faulty, the fuselage section they sent to the united states, over half of the fasteners were temporary fasteners, and boeing had to tear them all down and rebuild them. not only that, the japanese had been farming out the composite work to china, and about three years ago, china announced in the composite manufacturing

magazine that by 2020, they would be building composite jet liners of 190-passenger capacity or larger for the world. so they just signed the death warrant for the aircraft in our industry, and you can witness all this if you -- cnbc has had a special one-hour program, i think they've aired it three times, but if you are computer savvy, you can probably go on line and bring that up either through cnbc or boeing 787 dreamliner, and it's just enough to make you cry. >> let's hear from our guest. >> well, lyle has some good points. one is on outsourcing. the dreamliner will certainly go down as a case study in outsourcing. and it's one of the reasons why companies have looked at

insourcing, that is, bringing production closer to home, and notwithstanding your criticism of mr. malaly, ford has announced it's bringing its production of ford fusions from mexico back to the united states as an example of insourcing. the president had an event at the white house about three weeks ago to highlight about a dozen companies that have insourced work back into the united states. but the other point on technology transfer that lyle mentions is also very true. and you see multi-national companies, and you see companies like boeing and general electric willing to give away some of this technology to get potential market share in large markets like china. and the challenge with that is that ultimately that means the production jobs are going to go overseas, the innovation jobs are going to go overseas, and we're going to be competing against that technology that we've been transferring to japan

or to china. companies that stand up to it find themselves locked out of the market and i'll give you one example. general motors refused to make its chevy volt battery in china. and so the chinese authorities excluded the chevy volt from a list of cars that was eligible for a renewable tax credit that consumers could get if they bought those vehicles. and it was penalizing general motors to do this. china is not supposed to do this and we're supposed to stand up to china and say, you're not allowed to do that, but the fact of the matter is for many companies, i think the lure is too great. it's up to the american government to enforce the rules to make sure there is a level playing field. >> our guest educated at penn state, he also went to the school of american service. our guest has worked as

principal lobbyist for the afl-cio, he also served on several hill staffs through the years. scott paul will continue to take calls after this clip featuring mitt romney and he'll talk about china, which we touched on briefly. >> i must admit that i took some pleasure in the fact that he's talking about cracking down on china even as he has not done so. he's had the occasion to label china as a currency manipulator, which would allow him to apply tariffs to chinese products where they have manipulated currency that killed american jobs or where they've hacked into our computers to steal our technology or where they've stolen our intellectual property, our patents, our designs, our know-how. so even as he's talking about cracking down on china, he's left the door wide open for them to come in and run across our countryside, stealing our jobs and ruinin