additional training. the average salary is more than $75,000 so how did north carolina create these jobs? as biotechnology was being developed around 40 years ago, north carolina's economy revolved around tobacco and furniture. in 1994, the center was created to support research, business and eblg kags across the state. north carolina has taken a consistent and system attic approach to biotech creation. we fund researchers, we help spin ideas out of universities and work with partners. public and private universities and industry. today, some 58,000 people work at about 500 north carolina biotech companies. of these, 18 to 20,000 work in manufacturing. in addition, the state's company showed modest growth since 2002

and growth between 2011 and 2014. to meet the growing workforce demands the the training in 2006. this partnership called n krrkc impact combines the college systems to form a unique academic industry and government clabtive. the practical impact is that multiple companies have located their facilities in the state at least in part because the comprehensive training capabilities. across the board, site managers from companies like novartis, merck and others are able to fill almost every entry level vacancy from north carolina. finally, how does the challenge from the early 1980s reflect the challenge is united states faces today? first, we need a strong pipeline of products in order to increase manufacturing jobs.

second, training programs must produce workers who are job ready day one. third, we must recognize other countries are beginning to effect our competitiveness in the sector. increasing manufacturing jobs requires a culture of innovation. more ideas provide more chances for a product to be develops to a point of manufacture. this holds true for biotech products and for industries that will require advanced manufacturing. second, these bio manufacturing jobs require a different skill set than assembly line jobs. in north carolina, our training programs work to compliment one other and stay in sync with industry needs, but success in these jobs requires strong stem education as herbally as possible. third, the competition is global. in north carolina, one job

yields 4.6 total jobs according to the patel institute. everyone wants these jobs cht it's not just other u.s. states in competition. all of our states are competing against a growing international contingent. in summary, i believe manufacturing can thrive and continue to create jobs in the u.s. the infrastructure that supports these high-tech manufacturing centers lies in our education system and our capacity to innovate and develop new products. not just bio tech products, but products from new and emerging industries as well. strengthening math and science and consistently supporting innovation will continue to improve the environment necessary for the creation and manufacture of specialized biotechnology and other based products here in the u.s. thank you for the tuesday night opportunity to speak with you

today. i'm happen p pi to answer questions. >> thank you. i now recognize myself for five minutes. i'd like to start with mr. giffi, but am going to open up to any person on the panel. i think the people most hardest hit are women. in the workforce. there's no question that they are being hit the hardest. but i've also met a bunch of women who are now in manufacturing. they're enthusiastic and optimist optimistic. i was wondering if you could share some of your information or thoughts specifically about women in manufacturing? >> well, women in manufacturing represent an incredible talent sourt that unfortunately american manufacturers have inadequately tapped into so far. they're pursuing the best talent in the world and are pressed to fill their job openings, their management ranks with the outstanding talents. unfortunately, today's education system, counseling approaches

often result in women not per suing careers in both science, technology, math, engineers degrees that are necessary. technical degrees that are necessary and often opt out of a potential career in manufacturing much earlier in their life than would be necessary. this result is not getting access to that incredible talent and workforce. i think more can and will be done to encourage women in our schools and universities to per sue the careers that will lead to a productive career in manufacturing. it would also help u.s. manufacturers solve one of their largest issues, which is getting enough talent into their organizations to drive their competitive capabilities. >> thank you. does anybody else care to comment on women? >> mr. lubrano? >> yes, i would agree with that.

i think the problem is not that there aren't women in manufacturing, especially high technology manufacturing. i think the problem is we can't find anybody with the backgrounds and technology expertise that we need. i think there would be absolutely no hesitation on hiring women if we could find equalled women to come into the company. >> thank you. it seems the manufacturers i've met, the women are entrepreneurial and they're bringing their own great ideas into the sector, so if nobody else cares to comment, i'll move to dr. atkinson. you state that the country can restore its manufacturing competitiveness if we adopt the right set of policies in the tax, trade and talent arenas. why do you believe the changes you suggested will restore our competitiveness? have they been proving

elsewhere? >> i think they have. if you look at the change in output as a share of gdp, the worst four countries in the world are united states, spain, italy and great britain. italy, we all know having serious problems. there are lots of countries that are high wage countries that have not lost manufacturing. sweden, germany, a number of other countries have been able to perform quite well and many of those countries have taken all four of those steps. the overall tax rate is ten percentage points lower than the united states and these countries have put in place high rnd tax credits. you look at france and their credit is six times more generous than the u.s. credit, so they've put in place these kinds of incentives. a country we are big fans of is germany. they've been able to get high value added, compete against the

chinese and there are a number of different reasons. two of them, they have a great apprenticeship programs. they take workers and train with colleges and second, they have a wonderful system of what are called fron hoppers. cofunded two-thirds by industry and a third by the government located at universities that work with middle sized companies like the company mr. lubrano is where and those have had success as well. countries can, high wage countries can be successful. >> thank you. mr. lubrano, you testify in support of trade agreements because we carry surpluses in countries. why do we have goods with those countries? >> why do we? >> yes. >> we would have those in areas where primarily technology driven. basically, what has kept our company surviving and

competitive in places is the intellectual property we have and the technology we have. we are doing things today with materials for example, the hard drive industry, that two or three years ago, were considered impossible. we've gotten completely out of the box. broken the box and are doing things with metals, plating technology, process technologies. that three years ago, people would say, you can't do that. including a lot of products now for storage, lithium ion hybrid batteries for automobiles. developed a new terrible system that's patented. so it's a huge driver that gets us through those surpluses. >> thank you. i agree with you on that point. i recognize mr. sahr vains for five minutes. >> i was looking at these

reports. u.s. manufacturing competitiveness initiative. so, there was one from ceos. there's another one from labor. there's a third and i was looking at some of the recommendations that were included. the one from the ceos optimistically says that they conveyed opinion overall, that u.s. had the resources, capabilities and will to be the most competitive manufacturing nation in the world in the 21st senchly given a new approach to setting public policy. and then what i found interesting is the first recommendation herehere, or the first principle was from the ceos was policymakers should

strive considerably less to create a single specific concrete industrial policy for the future of u.s. manufacturing. and instead seek to develop achievable goals, et cetera, et cetera. and then i was looking at the one from labor. and their first recommendation on developing u.s. manufacturing strategy was to form a council on manufacturing policy to lead the development of a u.s. manufacturing strategy to construct dialogue between management, educators, labor and policymakers and so forth. so i'm wondering if anyone who wants to can comment on whether there is tension in terms of whether we should really set a focused strategy and policy on u.s. manufacturing and have real structure to that over time, or whether we should as this other report says, strive considerably less to create a single concrete industrial policy for the future

of u.s. manufacturing. we could go down the line if you want, mr. atkins. >> i think it's very dangerous to have a policy here without a real coherent strategy. and the world industrial policy has largely been given a bad name. whatever you want to call it, if we don't have a coherent strategy, we can't just rely -- we can't just rely on sort of expecting companies to do the right thing, just leaving them alone. one important reason, by the way, there is a skill shortage that everybody talks about and companies complain of a skill shortage is because companies themselves are investing half in training the workers that they did a decade ago. investing half. so when you're investing half in training your workers, you're going to end up with a skill shortage. i think the real challenge here is we need to form real public/private partnerships and form a national industrial strategy. and that will clearly include things, if you will, things from both sides of the aisle. has to include regulatory issues.

has to include tax issues. but has to include real strategy about technology areas we think we can be successful and about how we're going to reorganize our work system and other things like that. >> yeah, i don't think what you mentioned, any of those things are mutually exclusive. i think the game has changed. and what is needed is a partnership, if you will, between government, labor, and manufacturing in the management of the manufacturing companies. 2009 was probably the toughest year of my career. and i've been doing this for about 40 years now. you're supposed to say i don't look it. but in any case, the cooperation with our labor force, our ability to move people around, the understanding from all sides about how important it was that we get through this thing together, and the government help. i'll give you an example.

rhode island has a work share program. so it took all the resources we had and all the cooperation we could get -- government, management, employees to get through that period. and we did. a lot of companies didn't. but i think that's the kind of thing we're looking for going forward. so i don't see any of those things you mentioned in that report as mutually exclusive. >> congressman, i was actually fortunate enough to do all of those interviews and benefitted from being able to have those conversations with those ceos, those labor leaders, university presidents and lab leaders. i think they very much believe that the united states needs to come up with a comprehensive strategy. collectively, they believe that industrial policy, because it has a fairly bad reputation and the notion of picking winners and losers on a regular basis

through government policy actions is not something that they believe makes sense. but creating a broad strategy that has tenets under it that will allow american businesses to be most competitive on the global stage and creates a business climate that creates jobs, they were very much in immigrant on. >> maybe we can come back. >> all right. the chair now recognizes ms. blackburn for her questions. >> thank you, madam chairman, and thank you to each of you. as you can hear the bells, we've got votes. so we're going to do this quickly. i'm just going to give each of you a question that i would like to hear from you on. you can submit it in writing, because i know mr. cassidy, we want to get his questions in before we leave. but we've talked about competitiveness. we've talked about insurance technology, and mr. lubrano, you just touched on that a little

bit. also, and what i would like to know is from each of you is number one, when you look at that bottom line, and as you said, you've had some tough years, and we're learning to do things differently in our u.s. manufacturing base. when you look at your efficiencies, what percentage of your product, of your profit are you attributing to the use of new information technologies? and then secondly, as we look at spectrum, and of course we're trying to get more spectrum auctioned so that you can use more of these technologies, how important is it to you to have more spectrum available for use of these new technologies in the marketplace? and i will yield back my time so

that mr. cassidy can answer and you all can respond to me in writing. but thank you again for your participation with us. >> thank you. to clarify, the gentle lady is only asking for responses in writing. okay. so i recognize dr. cassidy now for his five minutes, and again recognize we are crunched for time. >> y'all give me the hook when we got to get there, okay? i'm used to women telling me what to do. whoever feels most qualified, i'm struck again as you heard my previous questioning how natural gas and domestic oil and gas, from everything i read, contributed greatly to lowering input costs and otherwise improving the robustness of our manufacturing. if you will directly contributing to tens of thousands of manufacturing jobs. now the president almost demagogues the issue. i hate to say that, because he continues to suggest that we can replace that sort of energy with what he calls renewables and not

have a downside. now let me just give some statistics that we pulled up from the energy institute that the federal electric subsidies per unit of production in 2010 dollars per megawatt hour for natural gas is 64 cents. for nuclear is $3.14, and for solar is $776 per megawatt hour. to me it is laughable to think if your input cost is based on something that has to be subsidized at $776.per megawatt hour, that you can have the same sort of robust expansion of manufacturing and intensive energy enterprises that we're currently having now. gentlemen, would y'all challenge that? would you agree with that? what comments would you make? >> i would agree with you. emergency is about 1/3 of used in this country. in our manufacturing we use natural gas and electricity to a very large extent because we

have to process metal and anneal the metal. and it's critical to our process. we need a comprehensive energy strategy, which includes oil, gas, coal, and you can throw in some of the others, solar, wind power. but -- >> unless that solar is subsidized, i would assume you would not be able to afford to use it. >> we would not be able to afford. >> unless the taxpayer wants to throw his or her money on the table, then frankly, the input costs would be way too high. >> the input costs would be way too high. if we had to pay that, we would be less competitive and there would be less jobs. >> so we're trying to pick ourselves up by the bootstraps, if you will, taxes ourselves to subsidize it so that you can use it as an affordable cost. >> well, i think that's a bad idea. i think what we need to do is develop what we have. i would like to see the xl pipeline. that's critical. i'd like to see more development of natural gas through -- >> now let me cut you off, just

again, because i'm about to get the hook. i heard an energy analyst tell me recently that the direct -- in fact, maybe the price waterhouse or another thing, that the low cost of natural gas may contribute -- may increase our gdp by 1.1% in 2013. which is really quite remarkable. >> increase our gdp? >> increase our gdp. you all would agree with that? >> i would agree with that, absolutely. >> okay. well, i think we need to go. thank you all very much. have i more to ask, but we're obviously hurried. thank you, all. >> thank you. >> thank you, gentlemen. i apologize that our time is so short today. i think we squeezed in at love oterrific information in between the series of votes. i would clearly like to thank our distinguished panel. clearly more and more companies are beginning to rethink their strategies and business plans for the coming years. and i sincerely hope that our subcommittee, working closely

together can give them a reason to make "made in america" matter again. i ask unanimous consent to include in the record of the hearing four reports published by mr. giffi's firm on various aspects of manufacturing to which he had referred to in his testimony. i remind members that they have ten business days to submit questions for the record. and i ask the witnesses to please respond promptly to any questions they receive. and with that, the hearing is now adjourned. thank you, gentlemen. >> thank you. c-span's congressional directory is a complete guide to the 112th congress. you'll find contact information for each member of the house and senate, as well as district maps and committee assignments with more about cabinet members, supreme court justices, and the nation's governors. get your copy for $12.95 plus shipping and handling. order online at c-span.org/shop.

in a few moments, steve forbes, president and ceo of forbes talks about the economy and the tax code. in 40 minutes, a hearing looking into a general services administration conference in las vegas. this weekend on book tv on c-span 2, live coverage from "the los angeles times" festival of books. coverage starts at 2:00 p.m. eastern saturday and sunday. saturday at 3:30 p.m., biographers john farrell, jim newton, and richard reeves on clarence darrow, dwight d eisenhower and jfk. and at 7:30, call in with your questions for steven ross. sunday at 2:00 eastern, watch for eric alterman and his take on liberals and the cause. at 5:00, a panel on surveillance and secrets with laurie andrews. the entire lineup is online at

booktv.org. in the new book, rodney king recounts his life following the video recording of his beating by los angeles police in 1991. mr. king recalls the riots following the acquittal of four of the officers in the case and talks about his own legal problems and alcohol addiction. you can see rodney king at the schaumburg center for research in black culture in harlem, new york city, next tuesday at 6:30 p.m. eastern. from the colonial era, prohibition, to today, drinking for better or worse has always been a part of the american landscape. saturday night, live on american history tv, a history of alcohol in america. watch our simulcast of back story with the american history guys. host ed ayers and brian bellow regular gail with tales of beer and spirits in america, saturday night at 8 eastern, part of

american history tv this weekend on c-span 3. steve forbes, the president and ceo of forbes joined us on "washington journal" thursday for a little more than half an hour, focusing on the tax code and the economy. >> now joining us from our new york studio is steve forbes. twice presidential candidate and president and ceo of forbes. mr. forbes, thank you for being on "the washington journal." have you endorsed mitt romney yet? >> i'm endorsing him as the republican nominee. i had earlier in the campaign endorsed rick perry of texas, governor of texas. he dropped out several months ago. and i said at the time whoever gets the nomination, i would endorse. and then mr. romney is going to be the nominee. so i am backing him 100%, yes. >> what is your enthusiasm level? >> it's picking up. the one good thing about this

campaign, even though it looked like it hurt the republican short-term is that i think it made mr. romney a better candidate. he has come out with a very good tax proposal. he has come out with some positive reforms on entitlements. and so i think he is moving in the right direction. a and you got to have positive proposals to go up against the incumbent for the november elections. so he is much better candidate than he was four months ago. i mean, four years ago, and a much better candidate than he was three months ago. and so i'm positive. >> mr. forbes, where do you disagree with president obama on economic matters? >> well, let's go down the list. first is weak dollar policy, which is devastated this economy, hurt the recovery. the binge spending. you have to ask yourself where does the money come from. it does not come from manna from heaven. it comes from the american people, either through borrowing, taxing, or printing

money, which is another form of taxation. his desire to raise taxes, especially on capital, what he has done to health care, i hope the supreme court throws it out. but it would just have a devastating impact on health care in america. so it's a pretty long list. >> what about the congress? what do you think about the republican house particularly? >> well, i think they've made some good attempts to do some positive things, but one thing about government in this country and some of the republicans have been a little frustrated by it is that our founders specifically designed the system so you don't get great lurches in one direction or another. and so they got control of one house, the house of representatives. i think this november they will get control of the senate and the white house. and then they will have a mandate to do a positive agenda. and i think the american people will be supportive of it. so you have to bring public opinion along.

and i think that's what we see unfolding now, reaching a new consensus. >> now in your online magazine, you a new interview you conducted with former president george w. bush. and here is the -- here is the first page of that interview. some of you may gag, but on taxes, trade, and much else, bush 43 has it right is the headline. i want to start with the "some of you may gag" part. why did you include that in there? >> well, president bush, he would be the first to tell you, still has suffered reputation, especially what happened in 2007/2008. he has always been a controversial figure going back to his election in 2000. so i was just serving it up and saying put aside your personal feelings on some of these issues. he has some very useful and helpful things to say. >> and what about the taxes, the

tax cuts of 2001, 2002, 2003? >> well, the powerful ones were 2003. the 2001s were nice, but they're spread over many, many years. so they didn't have much impact. but the tax cuts of 2003 -- 2001 were brought into effect immediately instead of stringing them out. and they worked. the economy revived after the 2001 recession, 2000, 2001 recession. and my only regret was they didn't do more, didn't do more to simplify the tax code. but it was those rates were good. and i think one of the reasons why we're showing the life we have in the economy today is that those rates were renewed in the december of 2010. and i think there is going to be a lot of debate whether they should be renewed again, at least for a few months, until we can in 2013 get real comprehensive tax simplification and reform.

>> steve forbes, i don't know if warren buffett is a friend of yours or not, but have you ever discussed the so-called buffett rule with him? >> i haven't. i've known warren buffett for many years and we are good friends, even if we disagree politically. but i think the so-called buffett rule is one of those things that would do immensely more harm than good. it would raise the capital gains tax to a level we haven't seen since the carter years in the 1970s. and because capital gains are very uncertain, you know, most new businesses don't succeed. it is risk-taking. and if you punish risk-taking, you're going to get less risk-taking and you're going to get less future prosperity. so even the simply numbers that the so-called buffett rule would raise, i think it was about 4 billion a year each year for ten year, in the real world it would be less. every time we have raised the capital gains tax, we end up losing capital gains revenue, not gaining. so it's one of