we need to figure it out. both sides have their arguments and they frame it politically. we frame it economically, we think. but absolutely not. do i feel that ge or dow or boeing are more or less competitive now than we were ten years ago? i think without question we're more competitive than we were ten years ago because we kept the investment. could we be making more progress if the partnership was characterized by some of the things that we talked about as opposed to the way we find it? i think so. but, you know, the dreamliner, it had its own developmental issues, but one of them was labor issues and slowdowns and investment in south carolina because of the government, you know. keystone, eric cantor. there's plenty of blame on both

sides. decide within a month. i'm not going to decide within a month. at keystone that's the president's response. so the whole thing was positive l -- politicized rather than what's best for our country? >> but you don't think there's a decline? >> you have to get away from this that we're all victim to. we're launching powerhouse solar shingles as we speak from invention to commercialization, three years going on roofs in colorado, nevada and california, a shingle. invented in america, made in america by american ingenuity. not solar panels that are subsidized in china, which is a great industry and maybe that's the industry we should have had. we are working on next generation electrical storage device material. that's coming out of american labs. innovation is alive and well here. we just got to get these pieces to work together again.

>> you're okay with government playing a role in funding that innovation. >> we are used to, in this country, spectacular failures and spectacular successes, okay? it took a while to get the dream liner, right? like a fine wine. like a fine wine. and we have lots of fine wine in this country. it takes a while. >> you know, david, i think -- i wouldn't listen to us, i would talk to the people who work for us in our factories and stuff like that. i think they feel like they could compete and win with anybody in the world, and i actually see, as a guy that travels the world, our relative competitive position has improved in the last decade. it hasn't gone down, number one. number two, when you think about something like the dream liner, it turns out this country is still good at doing hard things. and that is a competitive advantage over the long term. that is a competitive advantage.

>> can you remember a time -- i'm fairly familiar with ge, and some of the messaging, some of the marketing. we bring good things to life. more recently, wait a minute, we don't get budweiser, if not for you guys? does that speak to a fact that we're in a new era where a political climate, a level of populism in the country has reached a level where you need to make a point like that? >> oh, sure. you know, companies don't -- we don't stand on our own. you know, again, i think jim said it, andrew said it. none of us feel like we're above it all. we are part of this system. we really are, and i think we've got to reflect an error at a time. our slogan is imagination at work. guess what? nobody gives a damn about imagination right now, they only care about work. now we talk about ge work.

it's just, you know, today people want solutions, they want basics, they want resiliency. i think basically people kind of say, if i have to read another op-ed piece, i'm going to kill myself. i want to see somebody do something about something. and i think companies have to be a part of that ecosystem, and we want to be. >> we just have a few minutes left. why don't you each take a minute and talk to a washington audience here about what you're looking for on the whole playing field as you think about the future of manufacturing and american competitiveness. what do you want to see in the next sex months to a year, or what you're looking out for in the next six months to a year? >> i would say exports focusing on manufacturing. there are a whole series of things related to free trade agreements, export control, law reform, sensible immigration. there's a whole list. and administration is being

responsive there, so we've got to keep pushing that, i would think. get to a tax policy that is competitive globally. right now we're not competitive globally. a strong statement on education. and then i think there is an industrial base issue. you look at -- where a lot of innovation in this country came from, btnot only the defense industrial base, but other industrial bases has produced by products like microprocessors, the internet, so there is an industrial base issue which is about some tax incentives on innovation and r & d. it's not a new list but get focused on it and use the president's tone from the top on manufacturing to actually get some of these things done. >> yeah, i'm very familiar with

a tax gender that now tooadds t our energy base. we can start a specific plan around energy that we could never have done five years ago. a national infrastructure plan, we need short-term stuff, like on tourism, done. there are a lot of jobs refueling programs that you could take their place? >> get them some leveraging work, get them out there in terms of investment. >> if the president -- but really, look at this one-stop shop upon regulatory approvals. they really streamline things. work on the efficiency side if you can't get the big picture stuff taken care of.

>>. >> i would say everybody go back a a and. number 2, education. this did you not is not going to win after and the third thing is, i think if the world really thought the us would bring its may game by having sgrat xm or other trade agreements, we would shock people in terms of how well i think we could do. those three things. >> thank you very much. >> thank you very much. >> thanks, day man. well done, well done.

we're from the general electric forum on u.s. competitiveness with a forum on government regulation, energy policy and worker training. among those participating, colorado governor john hick hickenlooper and ohio senator ron portman. this runs about 50 minutes. >> it's my pleasure to introduce our panel moderator, bruce katt. bruce is vice president at the brookings institution and a founding director of the brooksings metropolitan policy program which provides people with policy ideas to preserve the health and pos terty of policy reforms. please join me in welcoming

bruce and the panel. ♪ >> good morning, everyone. let's get started. i want to introduce the panel, but i just wanted to do this little preface. i think everything we've talked about this morning, whether it's technology, whether it's regulation, whether it's skilled workers, everything used to recharge american manufacturing is a federalist act. the federal government, obviously critical, states -- remember, we're a union of states -- broad towers of over

mark market-shaping areas. networks a manufacturing firm and the ecosystem that supports them. we have a great panel here to have one of the few federalist companions. but critical to this panel, and coming from a space, that's a major global manufacturing presence. governor john hickenlooper, governor of colorado, former mayor of denver, also former founder of a small manufacturing firm. okay, now, it was a microbrew, but over the weekend i actually looked at the american. so glegfisher, mayor of also.

they've lived there and can talk about that experience as well as the government experience. last but not least, jay tim mons the master. they're in on a wide range of issues. i'm going to start and go with the hierarchy of systems, but i'm going to start with jeff portman. >> that would be the bottom. >> and ohio.

11% gdp, 9%% more. 12:% of your job. since coming to the senate, you've been a senate center republic tan. a she sblg and the budget would all be done at -- you basically oversee the ministry. as you think about a national manufacturing policy, what do you think are the essential elements and what does the national government do to move the ball forward? >> thanks for having this conference today, and it is great to be joined here with

colleagues at the state and local level and also with jay, who has a global perspective on this. my position on it is really pretty simple having toured 200 manufacturers in the last five years. what they're looking for is not the federal government to play an active role in their lives. i asked them about it, one have 600 spois 00903. so hoping more tart.

. the thing i hear most about hon ersly we have both an individual tax system this is he have. each one of our competitors have reformed thiz. and the complexity is also on. leg fligs. this is why i've introduced legislation. it's my partisan that forces regulators to look at the cost analysis and the impact on jobs and also how to use the least burdensome alternative. certainly energy costs is a big deal, as is health care costs.

it's what the federal government can do to create the environment for job creation that i hear constantly. and look, we have a little increased net right now in our employment in ohio. our unemployment numbers are actually a little below the federal level for the first time in years. that's good news. we should celebrate the good news. but in my view we still have a structural problem in that our economic systems are not keeping up with the rest of the world. we're not as excess active as we should be, and so that's why i think we need to reboot all these systems. i mentioned trade, taxes and regulation, health care and energy. work retraining is another one i hear about constantly. and i think we need to be much more agressive here in washington. some can say washington could do less, i think actually washington doesn't. this requires, in my view, a much more agressive and bold.

>> i want to move down a tier here, and they're not as stuck. 65% of your jobs but it's moving off. and it's moving off rapidly. >> the manufacturing is how we really started. there's a kohl olin no vags net worth that is emerging that is connecting the dots between advanced r & d, proet owetyping and ultimately production. i thought it would be interesting if you caulk about that how does that play under this federal system. what are the key areas you need

to work. >> certainly, when i came into office a year ago, we recognized there was a whole vacuum of samples to all 64 counters and said shs what do you want in the next 20, 30, 40 years. garment, gives than -- we have ak so he is to capital. and their people want to brand colorado as pro. just my fend and neighbors. but that means that we have to hold tours our highest natural

fwas. we may reduce the time for pilg b but, we increase the fine. we make sure that doesn't happen. that bottoms-up plan is what's going to help create the choin, which is taking all the vads colorado school of mines, colorado state university, university of denver, and blending them with -- we have 24 federal laboratories, and usually these all work at least in parallel purposes. we bring them all together with our business schools, and then with a big infusion of the business community, of trying to make sure we take ideas and innovations and get the entrepreneurship, right? innovations are great, but without entrepreneurs, they sit on a shelf, right? clifton wrote about this, talks about how innovation is great, collaboration is critical, but in the end you need that

entrepreneurship to create the jobs and that's part of what coin is really going to focus on. get those ideas, have the business schools, correct. and the idea is really to chick staff person and head organizer. >> holding hours the highest bidder. i think we will be able. as those states do better, others will rise, i think, in the whole country.

>> let's -- federal governments take advantage. our schools, our community colleges, are firms, large, small, trade association and so forth. you've been mayor for a expert buft first you did was standard a clob ration with a sister city, lexington -- about how long away? >> an our away, and oou got a whole new initiative with lexington that is primarily around making this part of this corridor of northern kentucky that moves up into ohio, a platform for advanced manufacturing. what are you doing, what are you thinking about? this is a very interesting kind of multi-city, multi

collaborationed so where do you put the impetus. >> i'm. the industry ji. 735% of our people live in metropolitan areas now. many things of new mayor and fellow entrepreneur named jim gray, both of us are business people just happen to be mayors. we're not lifelong politicians. if there's a problem, let's work together. that seems to make a lot of sense, let's do it. there's not enough of that going on in the political world. so we set our competitive advantage compared to the rest of the country appears to be advanced manufacturing. we have two ford motor company plants, ge appliance and parts.

ge's manufacturing headquarters are in this cluster we call the bluegrass economic advancement movement. we're in the process of identifying what our assets are, what our weaknesses are, how do we align the business strategy with the government strategy, education, foundation and non-profits and develop that type of alignment so we can drive excellence in advanced manufacturing. lots of support and interest, you can imagine, from the private sector who kind of feels, which i was part of, you feel like you're just kind of hanging out there and succeeding despite government health or despite a well-intentioned alignment. so learning a lot of things in the six months the project has been under way, especially when there's been a lot of talk and not a lot of action. >> we're going to run the circuit and then i'll come back and raise some of the issues

that have been raised. jay advocating on behalf of american manufacturers. i looked over the weekend at your manufacturing renaissance plan, and there really were more critical goals. the u.s. expands to the global market, to reach, as we heard, in the prior. we have a work that's. . we have a lot of leading in no. we're in washington. what do you think of the state and local engagement. >> you took my entire set of remarks away because you talked about our manufactured renaissance document. we do focus on those four goals. those four goals, though, is

based upon the fact that it's 20% more expensive to inform. the four leading factors or indicators are tax policy. april 1st, we will have the highest corporate tax rate in the world. it's also based on our energy policy, it's based on our regulatory policy and it's based on our torque policy. it does not take into account differences in labor costs. so that 20% is really a number that we've imposed on ourselves. the departments between the state government, federal government and local government is absolutely critical. i worked in state government in virginia, and states had the luxury of competing against each other. every governor wants to be able

to leave office saying there are more private sector jobs existing in their state than before they became governor. but today, as we've heard reference several times already, we're in a worldwide competition for jobs, so the federal government has to be a partner, and one of the ways the federal government can be a partner is to reduce that structural cost and disadvantage we're experiencing in this country or use that 20% to be able to compete with our international competitors. >> let me take each of these issues because i think what this panel is doing and what the prior panel is doing is really describing what could be the pillars for a new manufacturing renaissance. a whole different set of issues. there is no one economy that basically deals with all this stuff, right? so it's very fragmented with committee, agency at this time.

>> let's take the tact issue first. what has to happen vis-a-vis the tax system both rate but also structure so that we are beginning to provide that platform for advanced manufacturing? >> i call it the not so successful system. our tax system is ant quiiquate the sense we're not keeping up. in a global economy, fast-moving, we need to reform it. since reagan lowered it to 30%,

now 45, we haven't really touched the tax code until any way, but other investment partners have reformed their code. they all have. we will have the highest rate once japan lowers theirs in april, but it's all about the flexible code. if we're going to compete globally, it's nowov over 80% o the purchasing power. a company like ge makes most of its money overseas. we're competing with one hand tied behind our back, partly the rate, partly the fact we have a different global tax system. we tax on a worldwide and territorial system which basically means they have an advantage head quartered in japan or china. our system has gotten so complex to work through that it's a

difficult system for companies that are past entities. i had a company that was an s-corporation. they pay tax as individuals. that needs to be simplified as well. and the good news is there is a growing consensus on how to do it, which is to lower the rate and broaden the base, basically meaning getting rid of a lot of the so-called tax breaks, some call them loopholes, some call them preferences, but the bottom line is they're riddled with lower rates. brookings economists love to look at it and say, we want to allocate resources more efficiently. to do that, you have to lower the rate, broaden the base. the good news is we have a way

to do that on the corporate side. take it down to 20%. it can be done. it can be bipartisan. we worked on this with regard to the individual rate. there is a little more, i would say, political controversy because the 2001-2003 tax code is ending at the end of this year, so the so-called bush tax cuts are ending. most of which no one wants to see happen. my many. but why don't you put together a code that are more. we not only want enough for -- >> so the tax reform