not just great and broad based, but also, how much of a kind of investment should we make? >> by the way, simpson bowles, they're very similar. there's three brackets, so it's fewer brackets, lower the rates. >> i thought what was interesting with all these, they talked about the notion of cut and invest. so as we're reforming the tax code so that we can be more competitive, the general proposition, we are also selecting those kind of investments, whether they're advanced r & d, whether they are skilled workers. we talked about 10,000 engineers in a particular period of time. so as you think about tax reform from the state and local level and listening to the national conversation, is it just about the tax code itself or does it

also include some of the investment imperatives that we need to make at all levels? who wants to take that? >> our key toward growth, and when you take a look at louisville over the last 18 months between ford motor company and ge, you have over $2 billion of investment into the community and 4500 new jobs. that's big for any city anywhere in the world. and how that came about was the partnership between, obviously, the company's driving it, number one, but the state and local level coming together with tax incentives to make the transition much easier for them. and then frankly, a wonderful partnership between the companies and their organized labor as well, what's basically resulted into a two-tier labor system, compensation system. which some people are critical about, but the bottom line for a two-tier system is you're not talking about having either a $25 an hour job or $15 an hour

job, you're talking about a zero dollar an hour job. it's this global standard for productivity, quality and safety. so the state and local governments come together in that partnership along with government level to make it happen. >> i echo that to a large extent that colorado, as you mentioned, doesn't start at a high level of experience, but we compete with a number of different states. what businesses are looking for is a partnership and the predictability that we would be the best partners they ever had. >> at that level.

>> at our niche at that level. i think the same thing aeroelectronics moved their global headquarters from new york to colorado. the largest company, fortune 500 company, close to $20 billion a year, and they're going to bring a whole string, a whole cluster of electronic small manufacturers with them that want to be close to them. those kinds of opportunities, and when you're talking about taxes, one of the things we haven't gotten to in business, what gets rewarded gets done, yet we don't reward companies for creating jobs in any real way. i think if you step back and look at it, that's probably the single most important thing that our citizens care about right now, they care about jobs. quality of life starts with a good job, yet we have to think about a way in addition to

taxing profits or other measures, find ing a way to provide incentive and some form of reward for those creating jobs in this country, because we know in some cases they have a real disadvantage to doing that. >> anybody can put incentives on the table, right? you think, what's next? what comes back to us time and time again is what's your work force. do you have an advanced manufacturing agriculture? how do we partner together on that? some of the things we've heard earlier today that are being done better in foreign countries that are doing better here. that's part of the culture we're trying to create with our bl bluegrass movement. >> you mentioned before, as you talk to small and large manufacturers, it keeps coming back to, do we have the skilled

workers? one is, what's the perception of manufacturing in the united states? the people think these are the old caricature manufacturing job: dirty, not technologically sophisticated. there still are these perceptions about manufacturing, particularly in a culture that has sort of celebrated finance and some other sectors. so there is both a perception issue. do you, on the ground level, and do you at the national level, do you find this is an issue? and secondly, can you deliver predictable, continuously, workers, either out of high school, out of community college and hope there will be engineers out of advanced institutions and how that gets wired. as you talk to firms, what seems to be the central barrier here? and how much does this cultural issue or perception issue comes up as something we really need to tackle at a national scale?

>> let me just say briefly, in about 100 factories, and what i find is even at a time of relatively unemployment, but people can't find the skills i'm looking for. i read it recently. i think 82% of manufacturers can't find the skills they're looking for. some of those skills are not there because universities and so that there ought to be. they're trying to convince that this next generation of workers working in manufacturing is the cool thing to do. in ohio, they make $67,000 a year. so these are high-paying jobs. these gentlemen that tour all the time, they're increasingly high tech jobs f. i we thought

that was pretty efficient. now that same operator has tleerm, and not only the ability to work the monitor but understand the software enough to fix part of our challenge, i think, is to change the roughly 47 programs to make it more efficient. this is, again, what's frustrating, hearing the great things these guys are doing at the state and local level. i don't think the federal government is doing their part. but even when you get to that, we have to change this image, i think, of manufacturing. >> to the senator's point, at the n & m, we're talking about

precisely that. 68% of americans respond and believe it is critical to economic growth. when my grandfather stood in lip to get a than today. i -- i like the senator's word. it's technologically driven, and it's very modern and impatient. they've young people with manufacturing and understand its potential. but i want to rewind just a little bit to your initial question, your question right before this. it's not just trade associations, it's not just

governors and mayors and certainly businesses that can change the perception of manufacturing. it really needs to start right at the top. there has to be a commitment from the federal level, the president and congress, to embrace manufacturing, understand its promise and potential, understand it has, as justin mentioned earlier, the higher multiplying effect of any dollar invested or created. and we have to have that commitment from the top. to this president's credit, he's outlined a commitment to manufacturing in his state of the union speech. there are many members of congress that are talking about manufacturing, there are certainly governors and mayors that are embracing the promise, but there is no coordinated effort. when i worked for a governor, on day one, he sat his cabinet down and said, you will be my competitors' cabinet. every day you try to think of things that will create jobs for

the state, that will enhance manufacturing, that will enhance attracting business to our state, and if you're doing anything else, quit doing it. and we have to have that commitment from the top down. and the president, whoever that president is, has to work with congress on a daily basis to talk not just about tax reform, which is so incredibly critical but trade, work force issues where 5% of manufacturing jobs go unfilled, as the senator mentioned. research and development activity, all those critical components that are outlined in the manufacturing renaissance document that you referenced, bruce, need to be part of a comprehensive package to advance manufacturing in this country and to ensure that we embrace it for many generations to come. >> you know the one thing i would add on to that, it is important, but we've also got to figure out how to translate that down into culture. kids today would rather be a hairstylist than do advance manufacturing even though they know they're going to make a

third or even half the money, they like the fluidity, they like the culture of it. somehow we have to brand that, and it has to be in the schools. in our school district, kids don't believe they'll be able to go to college and they don't think they'll be able to get advance manufacturing jobs, so how do we get incentives. we talked about doubling the number of internships and turning those into scholarships and incentives. social media, we've got to be very intentional about how we make this appealing and attractive. even in the toughest neighborhoods, we're a culture of assets. people read people magazine and us magazine and they don't push themselves like they should. >> as a trade association,

pushing young people to make sure they see it. the work force that is there oftentimes has been there 15, 20, 25 years because they love what they do. they're working with their hands, they're in no vanovatinn they're creating new ways of doing things. >> they love that challenge and take it on. i get inspired every time i go to a manufacturer, large or small. you mentioned a new flexibility on the labor rules. increasingly, workers feel like they have a stake in this. i think that's critical to our success. a lot of that is on the state and local level. earlier you said states compete with one another, and cities for that matter, and working at the local level helps. i think that's true. i think the competition is good, because you're competing now, you know, not with indiana your neighbor, you're competing with india and ohio. although you're winning.

you have to go over to louisville. but that is really exciting, and that's good, and my only point is i think there is a federal overlay that's not keeping up with that. and to jay's point, there has to be an intentional, as john said, focus and a con eithcerted effo put kpcompetitiveness and the importance to making things number one. >> so often people look at work and education as toil. i've got to go to work, i've got to go to school rather than i'm learning in a broader society. last week in louisville, you could eat off the floor, number one, but the self-directed teams, people are learning how to operate as problem solvers, as leaders, as followers, so

when you take the look at the workplace, manufacturing or anywhere is a place where i'm going to engage with an employer, and the contract is i'm always going to be learning new things that will give me more capability and theoretically value added and compensation abilities to provide for my family. that's great for the workplace, but that culture is huge for our country, because then those skills translate into your churches, into your neighborhoods, into the way we look at ourselves as a nation that we're working together for something bigger than ourselves and i'm a bigger part of that. i have to do this to read us magazine, or whatever it might be. i think we need to celebrate that type of culture and say this is who we are as louisvilleans, this is who we are as folks from denver, but we don't focus on, this is what it's all about in this journey, it should be full of joy. >> you start to see that pivot,

too, if you look at the super bowl and you see the ads that were being played there. you're starting to see that happen, and you're exactly right, mayor. >> well, this is very interesting sort of trajectory, because again, in d.c., and frankly in state capitals and city halls, the conversation tends to be very programmatic, right? what are we going to do on tax, what are we going to do on work force, what are we going to do on land, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera? what we're describing here is a culture shift where we begin to dignify work again, and we begin to talk about craftsmanship again. i mean, one of the most interesting things i've seen around the country -- two things, actually -- is high schools that are beginning to bring back -- what we used to call locational work. we go to some inner city high schools where we're teaching manufacturing because of the wage factor you're describing. >> by the way, one of the things

john mentioned that i think is working extremely well in some parts of ohio, not so well in others, is business partners with a high school. instead of partnering with a community college or university, at the high school level bringing kids in, internships, co-o co-ops, showing them manufacturing can be cool. they are doing this with a public high school in the cleveland area, and they're indicating to me that it's working both to get kids more excited about the stem disciplines, but also to develop a work force so these kids do go on, get a two-year degree, and end upcoming back to the school, and the whole time they're interning and working in the summer and so on. i think there is an opportunity for companies to get engaged at a relatively young level. >> and for a kid to see what a job is. >> our community and our country is now those who have educational support and they're connected, and those that don't have education support and

they're disconnected. some of these summer programs, frips, are the mentoring aspect that may not have been within a one-mile radius to where they live before to see what an office looks like, to see what social skills are required to get a job. we can't get so caught up up here that we forget we have a whole group of our society that don't understand this whole basic work issue we're talking about. >> let me bring this up, because again, i think the adding of culture shift is critical, or else we'll make all the policy reforms in the world, and we're still going to deal with the perception of manufacturing, which is not accurate but it's still deeply held in our country. a couple other issues that were raised by some of the prior panel i thought would be good to air here since we have a lot of work going on. energy. so the notion that the united states can have cheap, reliable,

predictable energy as a platform for manufacturing is an enormous shift. but we've got some really hairy environmental issues to deal with. how do we do this? how do we get behind the polarization? not just partisan polarization but the real concerns that people have about environment in ohio or in other parts? >> in ohio, it's really exciting because we have these new oil finds, and in the west they're used to having these oil finds. in ohio we're becoming a producer of natural gas and oil, and we're actually going to be in that exporter, we believe, in the next decade. it's a huge opportunity for jobs. by the way, specifically manufacturing jobs. because they make pipe. we're expanding a new steel mill in youngstown, ohio. a new steel is expanding in

eastern ohio as well. we also make pumps and structural steel for the platforms, so there is huge opportunity here. and i do think the environmental issues can be handled among the committees, as you said, because we're so interested in making sure the fracing, hydraulic fracing, can be done. john mentioned making sure it doesn't get into the groundwater and so on. the companies have been doing this for 50 or 60 years, they're good at it, have been dealing with issues, maybe some states need to work on that, but i think there is an enormous opportunity here. i don't, frankly, see that there is a huge disconnect here between what the communities want and what the industry wants when it's done in a safe -- in a way with the regulatory environment that requires them to do it in an appropriate way. so i think it's a great opportunity, and specific formal manufacturing, not just the extraction of the resources but

for ohio it's great for us. >> it is -- i couldn't agree more. it is a great opportunity. it i. it is one of the places we talked about competition being so valuable, but also the collaboration and putting in the time spent with people creates a relationship and that creates trust. the big issue there, there are two marketing gurus in colorado saying it. we pushed the environmental community and the oil industry to really become more transparent. there has been a level of almost hysteria of people working of frak fluids and terrible stories in the media. ultimately, about a month and a half ago, we got the head of the leadership environmental defense fund to stand with the senior vice president of halliburton and they agreed to set a

regulations to protect their trade secrets and reveal the chemical composition. like coke. coke is the most valuable trade secret. yet, they put the ingredients on the label. how do we get that trust? we are asking the oil and gas companies to do any water wells, let's do a baseline. take a water test and sample it. in colorado, we cannot find an example of fraking ever getting in ground water in colorado. tens of thousands of frak jobs over the last several decades. we know there have been places on the east coast where that happened through bad operators. how do we give the public more assurance? this low energy will bring back chemical industry and bring back jobs on different levels. there is a disconnect there

pr-wise. >> the president said we need an all above strategy. he is right. the 20% difference that i mentioned earlier has one interesting fact for the first time. we have a cost advantage on energy right now. it is very slight, but we need to drive that number up because that will help us in all other areas. the senator and governor both talked about fraking. we have to get the policy right. we have to get all of the regulatory policy right. we have to get it done. the potential with shale gas is enormous. we have done a study with pwc that shows the shale plates will create 1 million manufacturing jobs in this country in the next few years. you think about the spinoff jobs that occur from that. it has enormous potential. that doesn't even take into account all of the benefits that businesses will derive from lower cost energy. we really need to focus on that.

we also need to take the politics out. congratulatio congratulations, governor. that is why you are governor. a lot of times we play politics with energy policy. the keystone pipeline is a great example. it needs to move. we need to make sure we are trying to encourage every type of energy supply and development that we possibly can in this country because it does mean jobs in the future. there is no question about that. >> in the meantime, you know, private industry is just driving innovation, conservation, ge appliance hybrid introduced friday. go to the auto show. you will see fuel efficiency standards 45 miles per gallon. while we're dealing with this up at the high level, businesses are listening to consumers saying we want to spend less on energy at the same time. >> this is about global

competition. >> that's right. >> you mentioned the legislation from new hampshire. it is for the companies to move to the efficiency technology and people are making things with a lot less energy these days and fewer people and more efficiently. you know, this is on the energy side, how we are going to get more competitive and not just expand exports, but be more competitive in taking away market share. energy efficiency lags. not just japan, which is obvious, but european competitors. we have a great opportunity to do more. >> let me ask you. we're in d.c. we may have well talk politics. there seems to be on this panel, and frankly when we get federal

offici officials, governors and mayors together, we seem to move to the pragmatic space as opposed to the partisan space. if we took the president's advanced manufacturing partnership and basically just went through the core sets of recommendations for national policy and for state and local, can we think about a place a year from now, right? beginning of a new administration, whoever is elected, where is there a small set of big systemic changes that will occur at the nation scale to buttress in leverage. is that outside of the realm of possibility or are we in a three-to-five yeear cycle where the cities have to innovate? is this one of those few issues

where we can actually get beyond partisanship? it seems like the way we are talking about it here, who is going to be against these kind of practical or non-ideological approaches? >> i said at the outset, i believe there is a huge opportunity here with all of our challenges we have with our economic structures and i mentioned energy, also regulations and taxes. there is no reason this can't be bipartisan. the president's own jobs and competitiveness council, as you indicated, as the advanced manufacturing. it is regulatory relief, which includes some of the things we talked about earlier. we have a bipartisan bill to do that. the administration has not supported it incidentally. hopefully they will. corporate tax reform. lowering the base.

going to the territory system and lock up. these are things that i know the administration has talked about doing it. i hope they will send something this year. in a political year, it may be tough to get some of this done. i think as a result, all of us ought to be working toward some consensus. i think there a growing consensus on the taxes side and energy side and regulatory side. my hope is we will be able to make progress. >> from state and city perspective, taking that as sort of 2012, not a lot happens at this level. what are you all pushing toward and then at the end of the day a year from now, what do you want on that priority list? if there is one. >> i think like a business guy. i just happen to be mayor right now. you know, when you have a company, you have the competitors. if you are dysfunctional, your

competition loves it. think if you are china or germany and you are watching us bickering, you love it. especially with manufacturing policies. they are not playing the same rules we have. that is not fair. the world has evolved. how does our economy evolve as well if we feel we can learn something from germany's ali alignment with education and universities and r & d business or with what china is doing with structu structure? i would like to adapt the system to get unstuck with american manufacturing. >> i echo that and go further. a lot of the short terms is it will happen in the states and cities. as a former mayor, i can take credit. why do we get people like greg

to run for office and how do we get risk and reward about the thoughts and how do we get that mixed in? i think we will see innovation short term. the big changes have to happen at the federal level. >> i'll just say we cannot afford it to be non-partisan. a year from now, we need to set the table, all of us here, every business leader, every american needs to set the table so that a manufacturing renaissance can occur after the next election. >> so that's the final word. i want everyone to thank the panel then i just have some house keeping to do. thank you all. [ applause ] this is c-span 3 with politics and public affairs programming throughout the week and every weekend, 48 hours of th