business, some of which are represented here, or a large manufacturing corporation or technology company, whether you are a historic brand or a brand new start up, in-sourcing jobs is a smart strategy right now. we live in a global economy, but we heard from several experts and business leaders that we are at a point in time where factors like incredibly rising american productivity and increasingly competitive costs mean the economic case to invest in america and bring jobs back home is strong and is getting stronger. labor costs are going up in places like china. we have become much more productive. we continue to be the largest market in the world.

so, we have this outstanding opportunity if everyone is partnering and getting together. that is the economic case. i believe there is a moral case. the former ceo of intel said it well. those of us in business have to the wall -- two obligations -- a fiduciary responsibility to the shareholders that put us in our place, but there is another obligation i feel personally given that everything i have achieved and intel has achieved were made possible by a climate of democracy and -- provided by our domiciled, the united states. all of these folks on the stage are business people first, and they're looking at the bottom line, but they feel good about the fact that they are restoring

hope and creating jobs here in the united states. that is part of the responsibility that comes with being a leader in america, not just to the shareholders, to the country that made all of this incredible wealth and opportunity possible. that is a responsibility we all have to live up to whether we are in the private sector or the public sector, washington, or on wall street, because the more americans who succeed, the more america succeeds. my message to business leaders is simple -- test yourself or you can do to bring jobs back to the country that made your success possible, and i will do everything in my power to help you do it. we will have to seize this moment. american workers are the most productive and effective in the world when you factor in all the costs. we of the best research

universities -- have the best research universities, and part of what our session this morning was about was having people take a look at what this moment is and where we will be five years from now because when people take a second look, it turns out that the potential for job growth in american manufacturing and the service industry is incredible. i said in a speech awhile back this moment is perfectly suited for our advantages. it is perfectly suited for who we are. the global marketplace is becoming more innovative, more creative, more transparent, faster, more adaptable -- that is who we are. that is our strength. we have to take a advantage of it. if we have leadership of the

sort we see on this stage i am confident that not only can it make a difference for our middle class and those working into the middle class, but it also gives us an incredible opportunity to assure the future for our children and grandchildren, and that is my central goal and focus as a president, that it should be the goal of the country, building a country where hard work is -- paid off, and a nation where those failures continued for generations to come. thank you to the people on the stage for being a great example. i hope you get a chance to hear their story because it is exciting and it gives you a sense of why i am incredibly optimistic about our prospects. thank you very much, everybody. [applause] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2012]

♪ [applause] ♪ >> the white house hosting business leaders for a discussion on jobs and the business environment.

we will bring you live coverage of that at 1:30 eastern. among those and is pitting the head of siemens usa, secretary bryson, the mayor of atlanta, and others. we will have it for you live and it is expected to run until 4:30 this afternoon. the president heads out of washington in mid-afternoon. he has a couple of campaign fund raisers in chicago. we will take you to one of them. on the subject of jobs, that was part of this morning's washington journal. they looked at a recent piece that focused on manufacturing jobs in the u.s.. host: james bennett is editor of "of the atlantic." thank you for being here. i want to talk to about the peace that is on the cover.

adam davidson reported this for you. what was the idea behind it? >> we have been trying various ways to get our hands around the way the economy is changing, not just since the crash, but structurally the crash has revealed long-term structural changes in the economy, including the rise of the global elite, and the rise of women in the workforce. what we wanted to address is what has happened to manufacturing in the american economy, which was the great factory of the american middle class. we have been talking about collaborating with adam davidson and the folks at "planet money. they are wonderful story tellers. host: tell us about "planned

money." guest: it is a national public radio program focused on american business generally and the american economy. they do a great job of finding very tangible, accessible illustrations of often complicated, intricate, economic forces and development adam davidson, who is the founder, had also gotten very interested in trying to get his hands around the question of what happened to american manufacturing. particularly interesting is the interstate 85 corridor, where there has been a renaissance of american manufacturing over the course 20 years. at the same time -- a renaissance of the new form of manufacturing. it is a sign that the traditional form was

collapsing, and to be more specific, what i mean it is the textile mills that power the economy, particularly in south carolina, and rely on seemingly limitless jobs for relatively unskilled workers, often high school dropouts that could get a good wage and lifetime appointment in the textile mills. that work went away, and a new manufacturing has replaced it. host: talk to us about who gets these jobs. who was working in factories, and what kind of lifestyle can they afford? who are we talking about? guest: is a mix. there are still some unskilled workers employed, and then there is a much more highly skilled worker who is someone that

understands the computer languages that controls these machines. if i could back up, what has happened is a lot people think that manufacturing has since the collapse in america. that is what the story of 40 years is. it is not actually true. we are still the number one or the number two manufacturers in the world. in fact, manufacturing output has grown by one-third. what has changed and what the crisis is years in manufacturing employment. there was basically steady growth from the great depression forward, until the early-1980's, when did it, then it was fairly stable but's 10 years ago, at which point it seems to fall off

of a cliff. we have lost about 6 million manufacturing jobs. at the same time the output has been writing -- rising. part of the story is jobs going to china. another big part of the story is the rise of the machine. and the use of increasingly capable and flexible robots. you still need workers in these factories. some of them who are skilled and capable of managing these machines. host: let's look at the peace adam davidson wrote -- the story looks at how different

he talks about a gentleman who is a higher skilled worker, math skills that would typically be thought of as things one would learned in college or get from higher education. the stories looks at how different their lives are, how different their jobs are coming in what they do all day. guest: adam want that focusing on standard motor products that makes auto parts, replacement auto parts when your fuel injectors hill, when -- they supplied the part you could buy from a distributor. they make a lot of parts now in greenbelt, south carolina. it is the classic profile of a relatively low-skilled factory worker. she is 23-years-old.

she has two kids. she's very candid in the piece about the mistake she has made in the thing she is done right. she was an honors graduate of high school. she hoped to go on to college, but she had her first hit, and was able am lucky to land a job in this factory. she performs a very simple operation. it literally takes two minutes to train someone to do what maddy does. at the other end of this summer she is what they call the level one worker. she's basically stopped at that level for reasons we can talk about with very little prospect of advancing and taking on to hurt jobs by her -- her job by her fingernails. the risk to her is there is a machine that will come along that can do the job more cheaply. if the machine cost more then

maddy does over the course of two years, they will replace her. the strike target is $100,000. if the machine prize comes below that, they will no longer be that job. hopefully there will be another job for her. of the other end of the spectrum, global to employees, and adams spends a lot of time with one of them as well, have tremendous technical training. an unusual native intelligence. they are operating machines that in the early days were one person would operate one machine, and now you might operate several. they are doing complex tasks. in view injectors, which is what they are working on -- fuel injectors have to have a

tremendous level of precision. two parts are separated by an inch. you need someone who was monitoring these machines constantly to make sure they do not go off the rail. you could lose $25,000 in a few minutes by making the wrong kind apart. that takes a very high level of skill. host: this machine -- let's get to the phones and get some calls in for james bennet. we are talking about peace where we look at the weekly spotlight magazine series.

let's go to kentucky. bill on the republican line. -- and penn line. -- independent line. welcome. are you with us? caller: and can you change your import/export tax laws for the country and get the work back in the country? then there will not be enough jobs to go around. it is training for something that you will not be enough work for to begin with. the import/export tax law has put us in the position. you can go back and check your import/export tax law and see what a difference it is. they pay like 3.5%, and we pay like 25 when we export. they need help in these other

countries. do not help them to the point where you destroy your own country. guest: the calller makes a very good point. there are all sorts of issues surrounding trade and taxation that are part of this story, the story of globalization and subjecting american workers to unfair competition from overseas, and particularly the u.s. is in a bit of a standoff with china surrounding some of these issues. i do think you could fix all of that and this phenomenon would still take place, because it is being driven not just by globalization but technology. the city events of technology. -- the steady advance of technology.

a lot of farming has been mechanized. this is a sign of great progress. the steady increase in american productivity, a tremendous credit to american workers. but it is staking out a tremendous toll on the american middle class and opportunity in this country. host: talk to us about what adam davidson reported. guest: this is what i find it -- really, i think adam did such a wonderful job with this piece because helped me understand what it is like every level of this company.

you meet maddy and luke, and you think here is this ambitious, smart, extremely hard-working women. you think why what the company invest in her education? take her off the line, send her to school? adam travels up through the company to the corner office and you understand why the decisions are being made in a really humane environment. everybody is under the same kind of pressure. it is a sign of what the american economy has become, this extremely ruthless and anxiety-creating machine for squeezing out inefficiency. it is a family-operated

company. it is of 400 million-dollar player in this industry. it is now publicly traded. they are being squeezed on all sides because they are realistically small, yet big customers are constantly demanding price reductions. at the same time, of the investors by law are supposed to be returning principal -- value to investors. if you begin reducing inefficiencies her, you are adding cost to the product. -- if you begin introducing inefficiencies, your adding cost to the product. back in headquarters, which is in queens, new york, where until recently they still made parts, they are constantly asking the

question, can we make this more cheaply? if we can, can we make it cheaply in china, poland, or south carolina? almost to a surprising degree, the answer is often in the united states for various reasons we can discuss. it is a game of not just inches, but tens of millions of inches. it is where they think they can achieve a lower cost, and therefore a enough of a product margin to satisfy investors. host: "the atlantic" piece -- standard motor, it profiles.

let's hear from tammy on the democratic line in alexandria, virginia. you are on the program with james bennet. caller: i want to say i agree with the last calller that so many jobs can be regained, but there will never be enough to go around again until we find out more industry in this country, what ever that baby. -- may be. and i want to call in thank you for bringing the topic of the machine and more efficiency leading to fewer jobs in manufacturing. i travel a lot with my job. for years i have seen the steel belt and the other shutdown of the cities and sadness it is to look at once was america, and the lack of transition in those areas, to the "new economy" available. my father felt the squeeze as early as 1983. he was working for a company in the glass business that was transitioning to plastic.

he was fortunate yet a college indication. he was a regional representative. his entire job was to go from factory to factory checking on the bottles after they arrived, and that job no longer exists because of machine can perform it at less cost. host: let's get a response from james bennet. guest: several interesting points and there. one, the impact of the unions and what has happened to blue- collar union workers in this country. one of the reasons this manufacturing boom, and again, it is an output boom more than hiring boom, is taking place in the south. it is a lot harder to organize workers down there.

as a consequence, it is another way these companies lowered their costs and are able to compete internationally. it is causing a profound change in the nature of the way we compensate manufacturing workers in this country. she talked about her father who had a college education, which makes a very big difference today and the ability of anyone to have worked in this economy. what has happened is this really profound change we are living through now -- where it used to be a big a margin for error in this country. you could make mistakes as a young person. you could drop out of school, and you could still find, particularly in the industrial midwest, a good paying work that would enable you to raise

a family, by house, educate your kids. it created an escalator to the ms -- middle-class for tens of millions of americans. that is breaking down now. host: james bennet, editor of "the atlantic." he is the 14 editor of the magazine created back in 1847 to advance the american idea. he was named editor in 2006. prior to that he worked for "the new york times." he was also a white house correspondent. let's hear from the bill, republicans in florida. caller: good morning. and i wanted to talk about industrial towns.

i have seen a documentary entitled "hemp and the rule of law." it would be great if c-span and your magazine to do a report on it as far as putting american workers back to work, i encouraged the listeners to check into it. ralph nader wrote a piece recently a few months ago about it, and congressman ron paul has legislation out there trying to decriminalized this resources that could be grown in all 50 states and used to be grown in all 50 states. the whole reason why it was criminalize was because it was a threat to the petrochemical industry. any product you can make at a petrochemical you could make out of industrial hemp.

i hope you folks report on it and ron paul efforts. that is why i called on republicans, because i have to register to vote for ron paul here in florida as a republican. i look forward to the day when c-span does not have these different numbers. and that is a sign that the people have regained power. thank you very much. guest: the calller knows more about industrial hemp than i do. that is very interesting. thank you for the tip. it is the various ways we have been looking at, but not specific implications for manufacturing. it is going to be interesting to watch the republican candidates moving to south carolina today for the next primary. it will be interesting to watch

how they talk about this set of questions in the sunlight industrialized south. they are right where adam was when he was reporting this piece. obviously the economy is a huge issue in this campaign. host: let's look back at the story by adam david said. you mentioned there is the decision making process that companies go through when they decide to base a company here or overseas. let's read a little bit of this piece --

guest: it is interesting. it is not by any means a slim down. in other words, you should do to china because labor costs are lower. there are all sorts of other cost of doing business as there. and advantages to doing business here. i will take one example, reliable electricity. and reliable sources of power generally. you want to be able to run these machines through the night often to maximize your output and efficiency with which you were using them. in areas of china, you cannot necessarily count on the power always being there, and it is just not worth taking the risk. the kinds of products -- the u.s. is particularly strong now and chemicals, heavy machinery,

and complex manufacturing. one of the reasons is they are making relatively small batches of complex parts. there are two important elements. one, complicated precision parts. another reason is they are relatively small batches and the the high degree of flexibility. you need to be able to change the machines over to adapt the machines to produce a different version of the party were already making. all of those things are easy to do with a highly-skilled workers that the u.s. has. it is another reason they often find themselves resisting moving overseas. now, all of this is very dynamic and changing in ways that are good and bad for us. the machines are getting cheaper. and that makes it easier to replace workers. at the same time, labor costs are beginning to rise in places like china.

it might mean that the companies will move to bangladesh or vietnam. they are constantly and evaluating all of these different variables at headquarters, at -- as they are at every major had quarter. host: the show's the plant at full operation -- the caption is can you find the workers? guest: it really is striking. in one of my old jobs i covered the u.s. auto industry for a couple of years in the mid 1990's, and the transition was taking place then in the factories. if you have not have -- if you have not had the experience of visiting a modern manufacturing facility, it is striking how few workers you see on the floor. host: the peace we're talking about is in "the

atlantic"reported by adam davidson. planet money stories will be airing on npr's morning edition on january 12 and 13 come out tomorrow and friday. adam davidson will talk about in a live chat at theatlantic.com. our guest, james bennet, is the editor. let's go to ohio. caller: hello. i love your magazine. i read the article, and i am very happy it was mentioned on c-span. coming from northeast ohio, and i spent a lot of time in southern california and arizona, but the thing i noticed is that because i came back to

ohio, and obviously manufacturing jobs are dying. this guy in florida talks about the creative class where they are rejuvenating cities and young people moving in. you know, rather than manufacturing make it a real city like san francisco. for the whole country, manufacturing jobs are down, and i think the whole idea of making america better again is all about rejuvenation. we will use apple as an example. steve jobs -- host: are talking about innovation or manufacturing?

guest: it is interesting you mention that steve jobs. in my editor's notes introducing this piece, i use the story of steve jobs as an example of how the country has changed. his father, paul jobs, who was really a hero of walter isaacson is biography of steve jobs. he wound up moving to california with his wife. what he was was a naturally- skilled machinist. he was able to get back to rework in the bay area. they were able to buy a house in the middle class community with a good school district that happen to be at the epicenter of the computer revolution. the house has a very famous attached garage in which steve jobs was launched apple computer.

that technological revolution that made steve jobs' fortune and the fortune of many other people in created these products that we all love now is part of what has wiped out the middle class is own father followed. this is where the calller was going. what is going to replace that? how are you going to get a steve jobs without appall jobs? how will you get the kind of innovators, creative leaders we need without a steady middle- class foundation? -- how are you going to get a steve jobs without a paul jobs? the answer is education and training. we all know that. we are not doing a very good job of it right now in this country. so far in this presidential campaign, i do not think we're

doing a very good job of talking about that seriously. host: let's hear from bobby in texas, republican calller. good morning. caller: good morning. very interesting conversation. i have not read the article, but i have lived it. i worked at texas instruments in the 19th 80's and 1990's. we became not just a semiconductor manufacturer, but a calculator and computer manufacturer. one of my jobs was to about your weight whether to put something overseas or build it in the united states. you are hitting on almost all of the points. it is interesting to talk about steve jobs. they make the iphones overseas. they could easily make them here, they would just cost more. we've made some of our products overseas, but the new, innovative product that was

going to change frequently at first we did not. we made it here because the engineers could the hands on. -- could be hands-on. if it was a commodity-type product or want to make for many years, we might make it overseas. but if it was one we were going to change often it gradually shifted to where most all of the calculators were made overseas. it was a hard thing to deal with, because i was used to seeing production lines of 150 people building calculators. it went down to eight people building the same amount of calculators with the machines. it was very interesting. my main question was, can you tell -- can you give us some

sort of rationale so people understand how many jobs we lost because of what i just described as a proportion to losing jobs because the labor cost is low or overseas? 50 percent? 10 percent signed? what kind of number are we losing? -- 10%? guest: that is a great question, and i am embarrassed to say i would not want to put a number to it. i will try to insert it. i honestly just do not know. whole industries, as you know, have moved overseas. it is things like textiles, and it would be very hard to figure out net net how many were being performed by machines. there is a joke in south carolina where they do make some textiles, but the mills are entirely automated that

they only employee two beings, a dog and a man. and the man is there to take care of the dog, and the dog is there to keep the man away from the machine. that is globalization and automation. it would be very difficult to untangle the exact source of job loss. i am sorry it is an adequate answer. it is a non-answer to an excellent question. i congratulate you on your callers. they are great. host: the peace in "the atlantic" and up like this -- -- ends up like this -- will you reflect on that?

host: can you reflect on that? guest: again, it is this question of what the u.s. is going to look like without a reliable escalator to the middle-class, the notion of a stable and accessible middle- class is foundational to our idea of this country, and we're seeing it it harder and harder for people in the previous sector to lift themselves out of poverty and beyond, and widening income distribution, widening inequality in the class structure of a country that has always prided itself on tremendous florida be. we have been waiting for the next, and bobby talked about this a little bit, the next wave of innovation that will create

the jobs of the future and provide the stairway escalator to the middle class. we have not had a yet. it is not the first time in the american history where we have had this kind of the anxiety, and the hope is something will come along, but until we get really serious about improving education in this country, i am not sure enough workers will be able to take advantage of it. host: james bennet, editor of "the atlantic." thank you for talking to us this morning. >> all of today's "washington journal" is available at our video library at c-span.org. the white house is hosting a discussion with small and large business leaders on in-sourcing

business jobs. a panel will focus on that. secretary bryson, the commerce secretary, will lead the first panel. among those speaking our heads of master locks, the galaxy solutions, and dupont. president obama spoke to the group about an hour ago, and the president this afternoon will make his way to chicago for fund-raising events. we will show you one on c-span to at 6:50 p.m. eastern. >> all right. we will start in one minute. i apologize for the delay, which

is in part because of turnout from the companies attending and the press corps. [unintelligible] we are pulling them back here, which will be great. we will start in about one minute. >>, we were just hearing that the discussions should get under way in about one minute -- a look at your in-sourcing jobs, and investing in america. a number of companies taking part today including the commerce secretary and head of the small business administration. the group heard from president

obama earlier. the president is headed to chicago for some fund raising events, and one of them is on c- span2 at 6:50 p.m. when day after the new hampshire primary. all of the candidates are headed to south carolina. we will bring you mitt romney's event this evening that is supposed to get under way at about 6:10 eastern, and we will see the governor of south carolina, niki haley, who has endorsed mitt romney. here, this discussion is expected to run through about 4:30 p.m. eastern this afternoon.

>> small and large business leaders invited to the white house today for a discussion on in-sourcing u.s. jobs in manufacturing. they heard from president obama earlier.

we will show you those comments later in our schedule, and they're also in the video library at c-span.org. reporting on those comments, the associated press says productivity adds up to a unique moment for businesses to invest in the u.s..

>> thank you for coming in today. welcome to the in-sourcing american jobs forum here at the white house. i appreciate everyone's patients. we have a great lineup. with two petals fall of business leaders and -- we have two panels full of business leaders and their experience bringing jobs back to this country and increase in investments in the u.s., and tried to set the perfect conditions for that across the board. we will kick off with a quick start by having some opening remarks by the director of the economic council, mr. gene sperling. [applause] >> thank you so much for being

here. there is no question, coming back from the worst recession since the great depression is tough sledding. no doubt about it. there is no doubt that even with the more positive job growth and unemployment news we have gotten lately, we still have a long way to go, and we're not close to satisfy. this president is not close to satisfied. but, it is important to note we have seen in manufacturing 334,000 jobs created in the last two years, the best two-year performance since the late- 1990's. it is not enough, but it is an important trend, moving in the right direction. what was so positive about the round table with the president, and what you will hear today, is

that not only beyond the trends do manufacturing and tried the growth in the next six-to-12 months, but the analysis from the experts and the decisions made by the business leaders here makes very clear that there is a very sound and strong economic basis for a new optimism on manufacturing jobs, a new optimism in bringing back both serving an -- service and manufacturing jobs, and a new optimism in bringing back america's ability to compete globally for the best jobs and services and manufacturing around the world. i think that you are going to hear from people.

we have great experts, hal sirkin, harry, and as you will hear, if there were two things that came through loud and clear in the president's round table it was one, awareness matters. when they talk about it in total cost of the enterprise or ownership, the experts are saying that when companies look at the full cost of location decisions, and two, when they look along term trend, the economic case for bringing jobs back to the united states or choosing the united states for your next expansion is growing stronger and stronger. hal sirkin will talk about how it is very clear that productivity in the united

states has continued to strengthen -- 13% since 2009 -- and while there is productivity growth in china, it is not keeping pace with their wages. every year going forward the american competitive case becomes stronger, and for those making a long-term decision about what is best the case become stronger and stronger. i will let them go through that. i also imagine maybe they could discuss whether the recent experience with the tsunami and a global supply chain might have people think about having more security with sourcing closer to home. there are a lot of trends moving in that direction. we heard the story with ford,

and the tremendous commitment to invest, the partnership with bob king, and the story of not auto jobs going to mexico, but the jobs and companies choosing to expand in my home state, michigan, and in other states. it is a refreshing reality that we are hearing about and it is making a difference in our economy. leo gerard talk about the ability on steel to out-compete in china, and given the chance, and obviously insuring we have fair trade relationships with china. a level playing field is a critical part of this strategy. we heard from people like the person who introduced the president, again, being from

michigan i have to love the outsourced to detroit, but as the national economic adviser, the outsourced to anywhere in the united states is good, but this is about service, called center jobs, high-volume manufacturing jobs as well. this was the awareness side of getting companies to go through the evaluation the company's bid. i encourage you to talk to them because here in the valuations they made is extremely powerful. the second thing we heard is that policy matters. for the president it was very reaffirming of the policy direction he has taken, and the policy direction we will take with more force going forward. we heard from intel talking about the importance of the tax credit and making it permanent.

we will continue that call for it to continue. the importance of the expense in -- you heard the president's status and i will reinforce this -- president obama has given clear instructions to his economic team that when we are thinking about proposals for our current budget, but also the principles that will guide our effort to corporate tax reform that the incentives to create jobs in the united states, particularly manufacturing jobs in the united states, should be a guiding principle in our current tax proposals and in our long-term corporate tax reform, and stressed also that we have to be careful that we are never asking the american taxpayer to subsidize activity moving overseas that is not necessary,

or that, while of course decisions that might be legitimate, should not bear the subsidization of typical american taxpayers. of course, everyone understands this is a global economy. these are global companies competing for global markets. there are, of course, going to hire and create jobs in other countries to serve those markets. the president is realistic. his economic team is realistic about that, the one the president asks that the end you should test yourself could your next expansion be in the united states, could you make your next expansion something that supports the country that supported you, could you go the extra mile for the country that goes the extra mile for you -- that when he makes that ask, he

is asking them to make a decision that has increasing economic logic and momentum. i am very happy that everyone here and the people a home watching have the ability to hear first hand and listen first and to the comments, and with that i will turn it over to our panel. thank you very much. [applause] >> action, i will turn it over to our secretary of commerce, and when i said policy matters, i will let the secretary of commerce talk about it, but even with the initial effort two different companies in the room specifically mentioned that the select usa effort, and the effort of the united states government competing and working to make it easier for people to

locate here was essential in their decisions, and that was before the significant expansion that the president is announcing and putting his trust in his new and excellent secretary of commerce, secretary bryson, to lead. with that, i turn it over to the secretary. [applause] >> we owe it to you to be succinct here, and we are going to try to do the things we'd planned to do over a slightly longer period of time. i think this morning's session was so strong, and so many of you here in the room as well as the panel had the opportunity to describe your business experience reaching the labor unions described their experiences in working with the businesses, so i will be quite assistant about that. the heart of what we are saying is we are reaching out around the world, globally, to

businesses to say that the u.s. is open for business. i had a great opportunity to do that yesterday that the detroit automobile show. a number of you in this room were there. we saw each other there. you know, that is an example, by the way, not just of perspective, but what this administration has done -- focus on advancing businesses. the u.s., and those businesses responding and -- in the u.s., and those businesses are responding and creating those great companies and business initiatives. then, those from they are responding with terrific products, things coming together. gene sperling talked a little bit about select usa. five or six months ago, the

president directed us in the commerce department to develop select usa. this really is a key thing. watch how businesses -- i talked a lot to businesses -- have talked to many of you in the room. one of the frustrations that businesses have felt ais working as quickly and efficiently as possible across not just one part of the u.s. federal structure, but across all of them. local levels, cities, counties, states. what we are doing in select usa is seeking to bring together the information about working with all these levels of government, make it is readily available as possible. you may find it not as directly helpful as smaller companies, but in the manufacturing chain, the smaller companies are suppliers in the

supply chain, and they get better and advanced manufacturing is the way things are going guwhat we want to do is just make this as clean as possible. we will talk to you a lot about select usa, a commerce department-based initiative. that is something i'm devoting a lot of time with a terrific team to. i want you to know that one of the things we're doing right now is a training our commercial -- our foreign commercial service officers. commerce department counterpart to the state department. the state department people have done diplomacy. the commerce department, as the name suggested, has done commerce. we have these people all around the world. but what they have not been trained to do in the past is reach out to people like all of you here to ask that you invest

in the united states and say that we will do in lot, we will do everything we can and listen to you first, but to facilitate your making investments here in the united states. that is going to be a constant theme. for example, in growing exports,, w we have this five- year target the president set, doubling exports. there are always challenges there, but now the focus in edition is to direct investments in the united states. let me start -- let me stop there. i could cover more. the heart of what we're doing is we want to help businesses build it here and sell it everywhere. as you will hear, for example, from siemens and many others,

that certainly includes the companies whose principal home has been outside the united states, but if they invest here. i heard a lot at the detroit auto show. they invest here which means they build it, yes, u.s. automobiles, the u.s. supply chain, but many of them export in addition from the u.s. all of these things go together. on the panel we have eric spiegel. we heard from him and to briefly this morning, and i asked him to say something more. brian krzanich from intel, incredible u.s. company. you know that. i will ask him to say a little bit more. kasim reed, mayor of atlanta, home to 14 fortune 500 companies, particularly strong on attracting investments. finally, hal sirkin, who kicked

off the panel this morning, had a little more time this morning. the work that boston consulting group has done to make all of us think harder about this is very helpful. eric, if i could ask you to kick off, what i would like to do is expand trade but at least part of what you addressed -- are there things in your experience that you think we could be doing significantly better across the united states in making it possible for you speedily to make the investments you would like to make here? are there some obstacles, things that seem to you frustrating, costly, and so on, that we ought to know about? >> thank you, secretary bryson. good afternoon. my name is eric spiegel. i am the ceo of siemens in the u.s., one of the world's largest

engineering and technology companies. we operate in 190 companies, well over $100 billion in sales. the u.s. is our largest market, with sales in the $25 billion. 65,000 employees here, 130 manufacturing facilities. if you go back in time, siemens has been in the u.s. over 100 years, and we've always manufactured and done business in the u.s. but we also used to import a lot of our products from europe, primarily from germany but also other countries. that has changed in the last couple of years. i will give you examples of what we've been talking about with opportunities and issues we have encountered. last november we opened a gas turbine plant in charlotte, the largest in north america. we invested several hundred million dollars and created about 1000 new jobs in charlotte. the reason for charlotte is we

got a tremendous amount of help from the state of north carolina at also from various federal agencies in making that happen. the xm bank was the instrument, because one of the reasons for putting a plant here was based on being able to export out of here. one of the enhancements you may have seen today is that they have announced we have signed deals to sell export 10 large gas turbines to saudi arabia, which we never would have been able to do in the past without the help of the xm gwe did not manufacture. just open the plant in november. we had sales to other countries around the world. that has been a tremendous opportunity for us. one of the things to think about when we make investments is the demand. is there going to be demand for the products? while having an export business is very important to us, we want to be close to our customers. we want to see that there is

demand for the products here. we want be sure that we can do r-&-d. we find that drives innovation much more quickly. we want to make sure there is skilled and productive labor. the u.s. certainly has a lot of that did we want to make sure there is infrastructure. at the charlotte plant, one of the issues we ran into is that there was a retired rail spur that would take a product to ultimately be exported out of the virginia. that had to be rehabilitated. people talk about the infrastructure of the west 20 or 30 years ago, we had the most modern infrastructure in the world. frankly, the american society of civil engineers recently gave the u.s. a d on infrastructure. we have run into a lot of it on our investments. we had to go and rehabilitate rails or we would not be able to export and build a plant there.

we built in the last three years two large when plans, one in iowa, the other in kansas. when mixing blades, the other makes -- one makes blades, the o ther makes cells. what is the reason for building the plans here? strong demand for renewables. there is an investment tax credit in place that has made it a good investment for developers. in both of those, different circumstances, we had to build rail sneered the blade -- rails near the blade plant. we had to build a rail spur. the plant in kansas, we had to build new on ram -- on-ramps for the highway. when we look at these investments, one of the first things you look at is -- i think

it was mentioned early on -- are we competitive in the u.s. making this? the story i told this morning is that for the first time, making gas turbines in the u.s. with the new plant in charlotte is as competitive as anywhere in the world. that was not true a decade ago. we look at other issues, one being infrastructure. can we move products out of market and around the country to be competitive? that is what area where the u.s. needs to make significant investments. second thing is around skilled labor. we talked a lot about skilled labor in the u.s., a very productive work force. those numbers are true. one of the things we found in charlotte is that there is a skills gap. we had to spend quite a bit of time and effort to train people to be able to do the kind of high-tech work you see in the gas turbine plant.

a lot of companies are saying that similar plans built today versus 10 or 15 years ago require fewer people but they need higher skills. they go to technical schools and community colleges, work halftime for siemens, go to school halftime. we pay them. about 80% of those people end up working for us after three or four years if they are qualified and graduate that kind of program does not really exist in the u.s. it starts with people out of high school. one of the things we've done at around our charlotte plan, because we need people who can run this long term, is we have started an apprentice program with about 15 people, students in high school, signing an agreement with the local community college. we develop the curriculum and our training the people, working

part-time, going to school part time, to have a steady stream of people who can work at the plant over the long term. it is something we took out working with the community college and the state of north carolina. having more focused efforts -- it is great to talk about stem. siemens foundation has the largest stem high school competition in the country. but if you want to bring technology, manufacturing to the u.s. now, you have to have people and work in the plants now. that means we have to start training people for the jobs of the future. if you want these higher tax, higher paying jobs, you have to have people -- high tech, higher paying jobs, you have to have people trained for it. these are not minimum wage types of jobs. they require a lot of skill. we signed an agreement with the university of north carolina- at charlotte to develop

engineering programs specific to the plan. -- plant. there aren't a lot of programs designed to develop engineers for that plant. it requires a steady stream of engineers. that is a case where we worked with local university, brought over people from germany to help with the curriculum and the college, to make that happen. very specific, and that is why i am hoping that somebody has a program that will give us the right people for those jobs. the more you want to bring over high-tech manufacturing jobs, and also the service jobs that go with these require similar kinds of technical skills -- we need to make sure we have people in hand. we cannot be developing people that in five or 10 years will have that capability. the third thing that is required -- i think you talked about it earlier today -- the manufacturing and investment tax credits. especially on in the r&d side,

the u.s. is on-again, off-again with research and engineering tax credits. we need to put that thing and it is long term so that we can make longer-term investments in research. we have research programs going on with over 20 universities. a lot of work around the city's right now. doing a lot of investment. we do a lot of work with the federal government on research and development. but we have to make sure that the credits are in place long- term so that the programs are not start and stop. you cannot do at a time research and element on new technologies on at 12-month basis. that is really important. the program you talked about, secretary bryson, is important. we are a big company, we have a lot of resources. putting together an investment for new plants in charlotte and kansas and iowa -- we are expanding a light rail training facility in sacramento -- we

have resources to do that, but it is complex dealing with federal agencies, state and local governments, making sure you get all the tax credits and incentives you can get, but making sure you can get the plant built on time and on budget. a very complex. i think that is something that having something like a select usa can really help you take that in a soup to nuts. >> thank you very much. brian, intel is the tool of the united states, without any doubt. what can we do to help you in any respect -- intel notwithstanding, notwithstanding the obstacles, as repeated the it expanded in the united states. the state of oregon happens to be at beneficiary of that.

happens to be my home state. we ought to be able to improve. we ought to respond to your presence here, your commitment here, the extraordinary work you do. are there things we can be doing to make it better, the work costs, he more competitive? -- lower cots, you -- lower costs, you more competitive? >> thank you, mr. secretary. we have about 80% of our are indeed dollars spent in the west, 75% of manufacturing done in the u.s.. two/ three of our products are shipped overseas -- 2/3 of our products are shipped overseas. related to price its we have -- related to products we announced last year, two new factories we're building, one in portland, oregon, won in phoenix, arizona,

$8 billion to $10 billion of additional spending on capital bit more than 500,000 construction jobs, 1000 or more manufacturing jobs. as eric said, these are not a classic manufacturing jobs that our fathers thought about. these are 70, 80, $100,000 jobs that are good careers. i like to think of myself as an of a good career. 30 years at intel. in manufacturing my career. i am proud that i run manufacturing at intel now. it is very important that manufacturing and r&d be located very close to each other. we run and is straight -- we run an industry based on innovation. that requires a two-year

technology cycle. you what the research and development right next year factory. the r&d credits are critical. when they are in question and you wonder if they are going to be there year after year, it is hard to make the billion dollars-plus-per-year investment. that is a critical one that we need, a long-term commitment from the u.s., because we see the connection between our indy, manufacturing, and were committed. that would be very important. we talked about the manufacturing tax credits. we think we should get credit for bringing this jobs and making those investments. our capital expenditure last year was $10 billion. the largest percentage of that went into manufacturing. again, we are investing in those factories and we continue to invest. the other one is infrastructure. we go to build one of these very large factories, and we can

sometimes tax the infrastructure. we have to spend $200 million on a waste treatment plant. the city cannot afford to do that to upgrade the waste treatment plant to handle the extra capacity. we are having to actually fund me. having a joint program where we could work together to fund that joint infrastructure would have taken out 10% of their projects cost. low-rent the number could be beneficial to help as we invest more in these factories and expand our capacity further. those are the key elements that would keep us reinvesting in

america. >> brian, thank you very much. there is nearly complete overlap with the priorities eric set out. i'm not exactly running perfectly on time schedule year. -- here. what i want to do extremely to talkis aske kasim about the experience in atlanta at if you could do this very briefly, because i want to preserve time and we only have on the order of 10 minutes, but i want to give those of you in the audience the opportunity to put the questions you would like to put it. if i have to push a little longer, i would. kasim, if you would help me -- you gave a good presentation on atlanta. the story is a really strong one. here is part of what we're talking about, bringing federal government, local governments, state governments together for ways to help.

often that may be significant help to small businesses, but all the things that has been described here are relevant to businesses. we have got competitively to -- this is a competitive global world, and we're not going to succeed, most of you now -- we are, by one description, the last of the major business countries in the world that has not had a long- term competitive plan. we have been pretty short term. we have not done all we ought to do in this area. kasim. >> thank you, mr. secretary. i will be brief. my focus today is what can cities do and what can the federal government due to be a friend to business. i cited specific examples. a light that is the home to 14 of the -- fortune 5 --

atlanta is home to 14 of the fortune 500 businesses. it includes what kinds of incentives we provide, but it also includes making sure that the government response rapidly with decisions that need to be made that will create jobs. to the extent that becomes a part of the federal government's culture, at least it will help competitiveness, and since 80% of our nation's gdp occurs in cities, it will help our nation the competitive. foreign direct investment -- porsche had never built a headquarters for north america before. we accepted them in order to close the deal after putting significant incentives on at the table for -- from the state.

we had to have a great deal of cooperation from the faa, because of the proximity of the headquarters to our airport. we took a closed automobile plant, and now we will build a $100 million headquarters for an iconic company and attract 250 jobs initially and expand to about 350 jobs. we will have a call center on that campus. i think was a great example of what happens when government acts expeditiously. i don't think that' the faa could have been a better partner in that process. we had an opportunity recently where we attracted $300 million in investment into on 1 million- square-foot building at insured and close. jamestown is a private equity funds that finan -- fund financed by german capital. because we have cooperation from the government, we were able to secure a tax credit that helped

bring the deal to life. to the extent that government response and acts like it icares about job creation, i think that will be transformational. a deal, aave, leader of a city or governor has to be able to engage the federal government, lay out the jobs case, once you -- and once you determine it is valid, packed with all the speed and energy that is warranted when the priority is job creation. that is what i was asking the president and vice president for and asking the commerce department for, mr. secretary. >> thank you very much mr. . all right, i want to solicit questions from the audience. yes, i saw you first.

>> organization for international investment. we are very pleased that the administration is holding this event today. i was pleased to hear about your focus on a select usa as you know, the trend for investment in the united states has been declining, and the thought of putting real muscle behind a group like a select usa is great to hear. i would like to know what some of the panelists by think of an idea -- as well as yourself -- that the jobs council put forth in october, similar to the idea of a national export initiative, but this is focused on increasing foreign direct investment by $1 trillion over the next four or five years. making it a national imperative, somewhat like we did with exports.

we would like to get the thoughts of those on the panel, if something like that would be helpful, elevating the desire to increase foreign direct investment in the united states and then if you could share any thoughts on that yourself, that would be great. >> i want to turn it to the panel, and then i will say something after that. i do want to commend the jobs council. selectusa is an idea that rose in the commerce department. to his great credit, the president took up the idea. i think the effect of the jobs council recognizing the opportunity here and then _ it, and saying directly in its report, "nice idea, but you have way too few resources relative to what is being done by major business countries, with the longer term and much more strongly supported plans around

the world" -- that is a big thing, i will see if i have anything to add. let me see if any of you on the panel have anything to say with respect to that. none of you on the panel will want to take up the responsibility of precisely what the federal government ought to be doing by way of expanding resources in this area, but i welcome comments from any of. -- any of you. >> i will say a few words. one of the things i heard her say at the meeting around the table with the president, and your quotation at the beginning, that the u.s. is open for business -- with selectusa one of your top objectives is encouraging more foreign direct investment. i think about 5% of the jobs in the u.s. are from foreign-owned companies. is about 15% of manufacturing, 14% of r&d spending.

foreign companies are driving a lot of manufacturing growth. we are not one of those countries doing that. -- we are one of those countries doing that. the more you kenaf companies got banged the world know that we are trying to encourage -- aren't the more you can have companies around the world know that we're trying to encourage foreign direct investment -- there was some thought out there that it was not the most important thing in the u.s., that i just creating jobs, but encouraging foreign companies to invest here, was a priority. what i heard today is that it is a priority. if we put muscle behind it, you will see more foreign investing here. this is the biggest market in the world and has all the advantages i talked about before. when you run the numbers, the u.s. is looking more attractive every day. >> i think you want to give foreign direct investment in the u.s. a push, and i think you want to do it now, continue to

change in favor of the u.s., -- i think you ought to do it now because we're getting into a point where the economics continue to change in favor of the u.s. three or four times as productive as china. it is a very good time for companies to think about the u.s. as an investment, whether 80s u.s. companies investing in the u.s. or foreign companies investing in the u.s. we are a huge market and we will remain a huge market for a long time. when you think about increasing transportation costs and other things, the u.s. is an incredibly attractive place. what we're doing as far as i can tell outside government, we are starting to recognize the need to do these kinds of things, with an assumption in the past that they would just happen -- we see that with usa select and

other counts of activities the pushing forward on these topics. what we will see is a fair amount of increased investment because even at the euro 1.30 to the dollar, at the u.s. economy looks very attractive to manufacture. it is that much more expensive to make in europe. >> we applaud at what you are trying to accomplish here in america, making it a place to grow and build things. i have a steel factory in baltimore, and like intel, we make everything in the u.s.a. and export to 35 countries. one of the things that hampers us is tax policy. i compete with canada, and if they have an 18% rate, and that is declining, and that includes health insurance for all their employees. intel pace 32% taxes, i have a

higher tax rate, because everything goes to me personally. i think that's something you could do to help us, president obama could do to help us, is to make our tax rates competitive so that we can beat canada and we can beat germany and we can beat china. more jobs would be created here, and we could hire more unemployed baltimore city steelworkers. >> i think he'll likely now -- you likely know that the president is committed to doing that. the reality is that right now at this time, in this congress, it has been so hard to get any passed, it may not be the time in which this gets done. but i have been part of a very

large number of planning guidelines across this federal government, how we can do that. there's a lot more being done on it and i hope something as soon as possible. >> when gene sperling talk about how this is incentives for manufacturing being a guiding principle, i think he is right. >> yep. perhaps you know, the president also asked me to lead and manufacturing coordination effort across the federal government. gene will do the white house policy. the practical reaching out to all of you -- i would like to get your name and follow-up with a direct conversation. [unintelligible] >> i have a company out of the

seattle, about 600 employees. two factories, one in seattle, one in chicago, that will create 250 jobs. with billion dollar companies -- .>> yes guest >> navigating these companies does not help a company like mine. my tax rate approaches 90% -- the other thing that companies like mine could use that much different from intel and siemens. >> we will turn right after this -- karen mills is in the back of the room, just walked in, head of the small business administration under the obama administration.

she has done extraordinary things, effective leadership taking as much further than it had ever been done in the past. reaching out to smaller and medium-sized businesses. that will be very much on the agenda. karen can describe some of the things they are doing. selectusa is very much a part of the future with respect to this. stay with the next panel and they will give more attention to that. i can do you and one more and then we will have to stop. >> we are the largest manufacturer of gsm-based switching systems in the telecom proud to berade i am one of the examples you talked about going to school s.

my question to you is why did it siemens leave the telecom industry in the u.s.? weh ave no more -- we haev no moer -- we have no more companies in the u.s. manufacturing cellular improvements. what can the u.s. government do to expand telecom so that we can compete? >> by the way, i am glad to hear your story. i would like to chat about that later. i have been with siemens for a couple of years, and that took place before my time. but i think with the new ceo, in five years ago, the emphasis was on reshaping the portfolio around businesses that we saw where we could drive global technology and be competitive. the decision was made before

that. i am not an expert on the telecom market, so i don't have much to said that it -- to say to that. >> last one -- my regrets for not being able to reach out to others. >> i work for a global i.t. services firm. we are committed to opening on- short software across the u.s. three centers today, 1000 jobs created. you talked about the importance of having manufacturing and tax credits. what i would like to see or hear about your plans for broadening its traditional manufacturing into other manufacturing like software development. >> any others? with regard to manufacturing, but the president asked me to take on is not limited, not

narrowly defined in any respect right now. it needs to be fleshed out. we launched a facility, part of the commerce department, national institute of standards and technology. it integrates, by the way, the entire federal government. this is coordination across the entire federal government. i cannot give you an answer right now, but we should be able to follow up. thank you very, very much. i appreciate your being here, your engagement. i would like to have more questions on what we want to do. is the idea to take a break, or continue straight on? ok, then karen mills, who i introduced but i don't see right now, but i am sure she will walk through the room -- she's an extraordinary leader, incredibly smart, strong business background. she is going to make a further

difference for many feel, but particularly the small- and medium-sized businesses. thank you very much. [applause] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2012] >> we will get together the panelists for the second panel to come down. if you guys could join us as well. great. thank you all for your engagement in the last panel. we are going to power right through, decided not to take a break, knowing that we will have a tight time out there and i want to respect your time. we will move directly into the second panel, which is "competing at home -- how businesses are making it in the u.s." is focused on the manufacturing, supply chain, the elements that have been discussed today.

i will leave it to our moderator to introduce the panelists. a little bit about her -- i had a chance to work with her every day and is an incredible honor to introduce karen mills of the small business administration. [applause] >> well, thanks, and thanks to john for that introduction, and for all of the work we are doing together to focus on manufacturing and out of focus on bringing manufacturing back to this country. we have a great panel, and we are going to ask for some of your questions, and we are going to take as many as possible. i want to say a couple of words about some of the things we talked about this morning, and the small business administration.

one of the things the president said this morning is that what we want to do for companies is give those folks who choose to manufacture here, who choose to provide services here, all the tools they need to be able to grow their business. that means access to financing, which means that for small businesses, it has been issued for the past several years. we provide loan guarantees. we had a record year last year, did more loan guarantees than ever before in fba history. $30 billion. we are all of the country working with about 5000 banks. if you of not ask your bank about a loan guarantee, we will talk about that shortly. another thing i want to make sure you are aware of is we just were able to renew something called the small business innovation research grant. it was the first time in about six years that we got permit congressional authority.

it was a bipartisan bill that passed, so don't let anybody tell you nothing is happening, because we were able to get support for small businesses getting fbir grants. this is for you and your small business to do research that will help you innovate in this country. we have an array of things, including activity in the advanced manufacturing partnership, designed to make sure that entrepreneurs can continue to innovate here, that large companies can have a supply chains and full of some of the best entrepreneurs. lastly, we will talk a little bit about supply chains. there are opportunities for small companies in the supply chains of these larger companies as they bring back production. and we want to make sure that those connections get made. we have started the american

supplier initiative. it involves everything from matchmaking, which we do -- we run the federal government small business supply chain, doing state of the art activities for the defense department, for instance. lots and lots of those suppliers are able to be available and are interested in doing commercial products as well. let's get started in our panel. you have heard some of these stories mentioned by the president earlier. i think, harold, if it's all right, we will start with the basics again -- >> actually, harry. it's wrong on there. >> i'm sorry. how can you famous for us? you said something earlier to the president. we have the basic facts. but what are the key metrics that you can share with us about how economics have changed?

>> hal covered that someone on the previous panel. -- somewhat on the previous panel. the basics of his message, one that we also carry, is the cost in china and other countries, especially china, the 800-pound gorilla. u.s. employment costs are going up at 2% a year, 1% a year. even though they are starting much lower, when you go up that fast, every three years to double. they are rapidly approaching a point where the total costs will get close enough to the u.s. total costs that when you include -- the cost of manufacturing will get close enough to the u.s. costs of manufacturing that when you include the total cost of ownership, when you include the duty and the freight and

packaging and the inventory costs for all the products, the intellectual property risks, the travel to go see them, all these extra costs that are not the case when you deal with your supply chain for somebody locally, then when the company at recognizes all of those costs, they are much more likely to make the decision to bring the work back here. as hal pointed out, our costs over here, the chinese costs over here, there still is a difference and there still will be a difference, unless companies recognize this total cost, because that typically is 20% to 30% of the total cost, hidden costs that many of the companies don't recognize. as an example that i gave this morning, one of the major aerospace companies i talked to, i asked them how they make decisions about what to make here and what to offshore. they said here is an example,

where we have this made in the u.s., we have it is rated to china, and air freight back to be -- air-freighted back to be plated, and when we are trying to decide whether to do it all is here in the u.s., we look at the prices of the suppliers. we do not look at the air freight, the carrying costs of the inventory, and of the risks involved. that is stupid. if you are not looking at all of your costs, you cannot make the right decisions. we provide a free software so that the companies can use it to make the right decisions. therefore, more often and sooner deciding to bring more of the work back to the united states, either to their own facilities or to people in the u.s. supply chain. >> bruce, you have become the

poster child for an industry which everybody thinks is dead in this country, furniture. you saw your own family pasta business move overseas -- overseas -- own family's business move overseas after it was sold. after being years in that market, being in asia, it occurred to you that people want made-in-america furniture, and you could come back and do that. like a great entrepreneur, said to his wife that we are going to go home and make our own furniture and put every penny we on into it. yes, we have done that. mission accomplished on that. he is back in north carolina, employing people that you had

had in the family business and even in the same factor is the family business. what makes a sector like furniture now able to be produced back in this country? how do you see growing that business >>? when we sold our company back in 1997, we employ almost 1400 people. over subsequent years, all that production was moved overseas and all the capital investment was dismantled and sold. i subsequently went to asia myself and started sourcing products for furniture manufacturing in asia. specifically in china. i was part of the problem of dismantling the $50 billion industry. as the years went by, i saw the

cheap, abundant labor in china diminish. in 2006, there were serious labor shortages in china, especially in labor-intensive industries. everything is symptomatic of labor shortages. increased delivery times, ferandes. that was coupled with a changing currency and increased shipping costs. in 2010, i realize that some of the ancillary costs involved -- that my customers were seeing -- it made a lot of sense to start manufacturing furniture back in the united states again, especially the kind of furniture that i was accustomed to making

in the years passed. when i got into this business in 1974, there were literally dozens and dozens of people who would make furniture with traditional cabinet joinery. that has all but disappeared in the united states. many people don't realize what a fine piece of furniture it looks like any more. i realize i could not only make a very competitively priced product, i could make something that the chinese were probably unwilling to make. i could make the finest furniture with traditional cabinet joinery, the finest furniture in the world, and i could do this with the state of the art technology, i could do this with at the american worker that is highly productive. hal mention that the american worker was three to four times more productive than these chinese workers. well, i would contend that when you get into the higher labor jobs, that differential is much greater.

those are the things that went through my mind that gave me pause to say yes, i can do it again. i had the opportunity and very good fortune to work with carolina trust bank in arlington, north carolina, a small community bank, but they agreed to do all of our finances. which was very helpful. karen mentioned sba loans. when anybody mention that, i said no, that was an onerous amount of paperwork, but he indicated that the paperwork had been reduced drastically. [applause] yeah, and he -- here is a banker that is actually telling that the sba loan with the paperwork

is not too much anymore. he was able to identify another loan program that had an 90% guarantee that was very, very helpful. it wasn't sba, but another federal loan guarantee -- or, actually, the federal government provided the money for the state to make a guarantee -- i think that was the mechanism. capital continues to be difficult when you have private equity, like lincolnton furniture did, and you have an imminent -- have a minimum number of investors, it is very difficult. especially if you don't have anything to show. but we did raise some money, but there continues -- i had spoken to karen about it -- there

continues to be for small businesses issues of capital, especially working capital. some other programs available now, you can get good equipment financing, and we got all the equipment financing needed. but then there is working capital issues. we are not talking about money that i want them to give me. i'm talking about money that would give us a comfort zone, comfort level, would help us operate in a manner that we would not have to be always bringing our hands about with capital issues. we are not talking about a lot of money either. a talking about -- we are talking about $250,000 to $500,000. just having that would be a great help. >> i thank you very much for that mention of the sba. the president has all across the administration task us with producing and supplying, and when i got this job, my husband

said to me, "sba, to much paperwork, too much time at." now we are down from this much paperwork to this much paperwork. loan turnaround time is in the days, not even in the weeks or the month. we are, i think, recognizing that particularly in the past few years, there is a lot of small businesses out there with the interest in expanding, but they don't necessarily need -- meet all the criteria, because they have suffered through a couple of tough years. we will provide now, and this one of the announcements of today, i 90% at loan guarantee on certain insourcing. i will have you stand up, because i bet there is somebody in this audience who, like bruce, is looking for an extra piece of capital. we have a particular working

capital line that we simplified as well, called the cap line. we have banks out there working with us on exactly this effort. this is a place where government wind at in and anput the the back of small businesses. how many you have made a call to a call center, and it has been picked up, and you realize you are probably talking to somebody in this country? i don't know. recently, u.s. began a trend. >> -- you have begun a trend. >> i was with the company that was completely onshore helping companies come back to the united states. i am a founding member of jobs for america. with a dedicated to bring 100,000 jobs back. it is not working over there. many of us have had a good call

over there, but it is not repeatable often. the recent call centers went over there 10, 15, 20 years ago -- it was the easy calls we sent over there. those are gone. they have all been automated p. the complex problem solving skills, the ones you need good communication for -- if we have a hard time understanding them, they have a hard time understanding as. -- us. this has been a myopic focus on next quarter earnings with ceo's. we are focused on unit cost and cost per minute. we have an operating model, we help companies and show them how they can do it 15% cheaper in the united states if they take all the costs into account. the fact that they pay half the cost and labor costs does not

make any difference. it takes three calls to get your problem resolved. that is simple math. the handle time is 50% to 100% higher over there. that just does not make economic sense in an operating model. if you have not solve the customer's problem, what is the focus on your brand? i think people have done a lot of brand damage by putting call centers over there. sometimes, with your credit card company, you talk to them once a year. don't you want that four-to-10- minute call to be an emotional connection with your customer? my company is dedicated to improving the customer experience and loyalty, because it is not about short-term profit, it is about long-term loyalty and the viability of the company. in fact, a lot of call centers

have come back, 3% of all working americans are working in call centers right now. only 12% of call centers are offshore. three years ago, 30% of all high-tech call centers were offered. now is 12%. they are coming back, but nobody is talking about it. number one, a lot of people don't want to talk about the mistake they made. we have people up here who have been completely honest and said hey, mistakes have been made. mistakes have been made. also, they may have come back, because they cannot say so but they don't toot theiro wn horn -- their own horn because another division is of short. lastly, companies come back for a competitive edge. go ahead, leave calls offshore.

you are hurint -- hurting yourself. a lot of people are coming back. there are a lot of examples. showed that the new operating model and we are happy to do so, even if they don't come to my company. we are happy to bring them back. >> comes from the great state of maine, where there is the iconic l.l. bean kind of experience. there is a proven connection between the customers, because of the service people. >> also, it is not a minimum- wage job anymore. the average worker makes $14, at $15 an hour. there might be some in the $10, $11 an hour wage level. then they go up to the $100,000 sales job. we have an arts center, at a number of people have worked there.

the family is in middle-class. they both work in the call center, on the phone, and they are middle-class. i have four generations working at the call center. it is great for older people. they have great, mature judgment. i have one person on the phone, 92 years old, cooks for the army, as a heck of a good job of it. these are hard and complex jobs. we need to get our high-school education and graduation rates up. some of these jobs require college, all of them require high school education skills. thinking, critical problem solving. when i walked into cities, and frequently i have walked into major cities that have 50, 60% and graduation rates of high school, i cannot be there. i select a city that has an 85, 90% graduation rate.

we have to think about being competitive in the united states for the jobs that come back. >> that leads into some of the things you mentioned earlier about work-force training. who has a master log? >> want to see all the hands here. >> >> we know that brand. you are producing in milwaukee. one of the things the president talked about is you are at capacity right now. you said i need more skilled workers. i have business. i can do business here. i can ship it overseas. if i need to make sure i am working with community colleges and others to build a skilled work force. >> i am the ceo of master lock. we make about 65 million locks a

year. i always had a theory that people threw them in the ocean. that is why we make some money. our story is different. we are part of a new york stock exchange traded company called fortune brands common security. if you take master lock and go back to the late-1990's, at -- as a matter of survival, so we outsourced many jobs to china and mexico. what happened back then was we had a facility with about 1200 people in milwaukee, wisconsin, that we kept open. we kept about 300 people. now we are up to 400 people and growing. some of the challenges -- the economics are moving in our favor. we are moving jobs back. we feel good about that.

when you are making those decisions, economics plays a huge role. we are seeing the dynamic change for all the reasons you heard today. some of the things we talked about today -- what could make that happen faster. i thought i would share some of the challenges -- our access to skilled labor. that is something that is very important to us. we are talking about machine- building, electricians, tool makers, and a higher level of skill than we were 10 years ago because the jobs we are bringing back now are to a much more automated facility. so, the challenge put in front of us is how do you recruit for skilled trades people? there are a couple of things

that i've gone on with the transition of manufacturing jobs. a lot of people lost their jobs and they found other things to do. then you find out high school does not have shop class anymore. it is hard to aspire to something you have not been introduced to. we have those challenges as well. how do you get students to aspire to go into manufacturing? we have they get in this country. our skills trade people are approaching 55 and older in terms of an age group because we have a gap. if we are going to bring back jobs faster we need to do intense training. some of the things we have done is partner with many local technical companies and some universities. we have done that in terms of being on their board, participating in building curriculum's, and allowing

people to enter the program still earn an apprentice ship after about five years. it is a long process, but the end of the date it benefits us and it benefits them. we talked about how to get better training, faster training, and how to make manufacturing a business kids aspire to coming out of school. that is really critical. >> i was in minneapolis announcing a partnership with the national association of manufacturers with the right skills now, which is part of our skills of america, and we were teaching an entrepreneur oral skills as well as manufacturing al skills entrepreneur eu as well as manufacturing skills. they are having trouble recruiting because the mother says i want my kid to do

computers. we were standing in the middle of the manufacturing of war -- 4, and the manufacturers said i am running a computer. it is not the same kind of manufacturing as before. we have a lot of work to do to change that fear that you will go into a skill, and there will not be a job there. this effort, and this moment, and all of you telling your story is, and conveying the message, have a lot to do in -- with helping our use and the nextgen -- our youth and next generation to get to a job. we are committed to building the foundation. >> high have been promoting an idea of the ties together the need for financing and the need

for more skilled workforce and the sba. [laughter] >> the idea would be for companies that can not get loans conventionally, if the sba guarantees the loan, for every, let's say, two hundred $50,000 worth -- too hard to keep thousand dollars worth -- $250,000 worth of loan, or $500,000 worth, they have to have one apprentice. >> i think that is a great idea. that ties together specifically a lot of the things we heard from folks here, and labor this morning.

they are very committed as well with a program where we do have capital and grants available. i will turn to the audience for a whole set of questions. think about that, then i will turn back to the panel. yes. another called center. >> this is a tremendous story -- to having been part of the session, [unintelligible] >> say your name? >> i am the chairman of verizon solutions. >> nancy gave us a long laundry list in 2009 of the things we need to get done. >> one of the things i'm delighted to hear it is a focus on the service industry. much of the discussion has been focused on manufacturing jobs.

we know that 80% of inclement today is -- of an appointment today in the united states is a service sector focus role. a couple of things to consider -- as we focus on trying to build skills, i would like to suggest that we take half of the two hundred 80,000 identified teachers who are identified as not employed in the jobs at, and suggest that they've learned how to teach people jobs skills. if we could teach them to deliver jobs skills in a virtual manner, what we are able to do is educate people without any constraint, because we allow people to connect from their computer at home, and be able to skill themselves up to perform

these jobs. >> that is a great idea. a lot of you have home-based call center people. >> yes. the number since 2009 has doubled. we are now 22,000. we expect another 8000 workers in the united states alone in 2012. the second idea is really to be focused, first on skills, but then second on the work. i would like to encourage the small business administration as well as the government at large to look at work that is being done today that has a belief that it has to be done in a brick and mortar facility. many fortune 500 companies today

are looking at ways work can be so the work can be placed with a worker, instead of making workers relocate to a community in order to find a job. we know it is difficult for people to decide to relocate. and allows us to actually move the job or the -- it allows us to actually move the job or the worked to where the worker reside. that would be the second suggestion. let's look for ways to take work that people consider have to be done in a bricks and mortar chanter today, and send that were compared >> part of the -- san that works home. >> part of doing it cheaper is

the work at home model. for the employee, they seek a pay raise to their cost -- a bad least $6,000, or $8,000. -- of at least $6,000, or $8,000. >> it really put more money in the pockets of american workers. we had over 100,000 people express interest in being able to work from home. >> this is one of the things we see over and over. you can reinvent the way work is done and how we do it here because technology will allow you to connect everyone securely in the home, for instance. we can continually look for new opportunities. >> i am and apparel manufacturer from los angeles, -- california.

yes, we still make clothing in the united states. in that business, those jobs are coming back. like we heard earlier, there are issues in china with raising prices and a drop in quality. we found over a year ago we were having more difficulties with the products we were bringing out of china. we have maintained some production in the united states, and we look at how to do more. one of the issues facing us, and there are a number of issues facing us, but one is vocational training is horrible in california. education curriculum is that every child that does graduate, and not many do in california from a high school, will be trained to go on to a four-year

education, and not become a plumber or an electrician. we need to deal in a realistic way with the emigration. -- immigration. we have looked past immigration as the issue. until we deal with that, we have a workforce in california predominantly latino, predominantly a legal. they will feed their families some light. they are working, mostly illegally. a very large t-shirt company was rated -- raided and lost 500 jobs. food companies are losing thousands of jobs.

we need to be realistic with a work visa program. >> thank you. i think you are following some of the immigration discussions the president has put forth. i think there is a lot of agreement that these are issues that we need to get solved. yes. >> -- [unintelligible] >> please stand up. >> our company has been manufacturing products in the u.s.. we have been bringing jobs back to this country, expanding our plant in alabama, and one of the big issues we have is being competitive in the global market -- materials we can not get you in the u.s., we have to compete with companies that work and free trade zones.

how can we bring our costs down to compete against international companies? >> you used to be able to buy those things. i have the same problem with hardware and drawer glides that i cannot get in the united states. there are some made in the united states, but it is very expensive. there used the dozens of decorative hardware makers in the united states, and now there is none. that is a good point. >> he want to say something to that? >> yes, so, we have some ideas about helping you with some of the sourcing, and also, if you wanted to produce any of that in-house, how you might, you know, get some of the financing to do that. one of the things you wanted to

mention, bruce cochrane, was the level playing field. did you want to talk above that? >> there is a level playing field. i feel like we can definitely compete with the chinese and other asian countries. it is going to be interesting to see those people that will also take these initiatives and manufacture furniture and other consumer products in the united states. one thing that does not been mentioned today is the furniture industry in china was heavily subsidized and that always had export initiatives to sell products in china. chinese businessmen got very wealthy with it. those generous subsidies have all but disappeared, but now they are incentivizing these

same families of -- factories to sell products domestically. you are getting subsidies it used to be for export, and now they are for domestic sales. that will impact not only furniture, but all consumer products. we will be selling furniture to china. there is no question about it. asians love american-made products, and there is an appetite for it. >> made in america is hot. how many of you have gotten that sense? >> made in america means a better america, for sure. >> i am james. i've had a fascinating day watching different journeys of different companies, and we find ourselves in a place where we got through our working capital

situation. we got our innovation platform. we built a key programming in portland, oregon. we went from 95 to 132. the challenge we have is not so much around the dynamics we are hearing about today. when i looked to the future, you say made in america, how do you protect the outdoor industry because we have brand's appeal in around the world. the notion of protecting not only innovation and intellectual property, and a counterfeiting dynamic is rampant. it is not just products-for- product. there is the digital platform

that gets set up quickly. the product gets to the market quickly, faster than ever, and our ability, the obstacle course, or the opportunity course, just when we figure of one thing we say we got hit with this. it would be interesting to see what the small business administration could do. once we build this, how do we protect the platform. the challenge is that the software you created -- doesn't take into consideration the innovation in decorating? >> how many of you have heard that we are supposed to be an innovation country? the implication is we should innovate, be like apple, innovate, and forget about

manufacturing. in apple's case, 25,000 employees are in the u.s., and half of 1 million are in china making the things. if you want to innovate, in apple's case it has worked, but in general it does not work well when you separate engineering from manufacturing. repeated studies from harvard business school have shown that if this is highly it used to be with manufacturing and that together, and defect drops off a dramatic leap in reaching the effect drops off in dramatically. -- the fact drops off dramatically. if you let manufacturing go over here, and do not bring it back, the logical solution is your engineering goes over there,

too. now you have neither of them, and essentially nothing. we think it is essential to be an innovation country to be a manufacturing country. >> i will say this is a big part of the advanced manufacturing partnership, which is universities, corporate leaders, and the administration working together on keeping manufacturing and doing advanced manufacturing, and keeping the pilot stage of the. right after innovation, when you start to scale up, keeping that here. it is really in the first stage that a lot of the innovation is well understood and codified, and if you are doing that summer house, the final production will be there, but if that expertise happens here, it is the foundation for the next set of jobs here. i think we can take a couple of questions in the back.

>> my name is bill. i am the founder and ceo of collaborative consulting. we opened up a domestic development center in warsaw, wisconsin, and, by the way to my vacation in the state of maine in the summer. my question -- we are trying to bring technology jobs setup and going to india and china back to the united states. you stated that you believe a 20%-2-30% hidden costs in manufacturing by having jobs overseas. do you think that same cost is in services and i.t. services as well? i think it is more difficult to measure. in manufacturing it is easy to measure the freight and the cost of the inventory.

there are a series of things are relatively easy to measure, whereas with services is a greater question about the relative productivity of the two. there are still travel costs to check on them, intellectual property risks, but i would on the subject of services in general give way to the experts here, who have noted that is about equivalently costly offshore and domestically. i would like to meet with you after and start working on that project that >> as a former -- that. >> as a former cio, i will tell you it is exactly that issue. the arguing back and forth, it

was even more amazing when i ran a major i.t. operation twist i think it is very similar. >> we of taken on two projects recently with two sets of jobs going to india, and able to bring them to the united states. we are very -- >> i encourage you if you are offshore do the activity on sure, and you could look at the output, and really make a comparison. when the ship everything over there, it is really hard to tell. -- when you ship everything over there, it is really hard to tell. >> we are a rural firm. we do software development and things like that, and paperwork that goes offshore.

a jury, if it is the same collaborative consulting, -- actually, if it is the same collaborative consulting, we have worked together. >> we like it when business gets done. >> the problem that we solve is we have figured out how to retool dislocated workers with extremely focused training. in rural america, there is like 60 million people, and they have been over-shot. why can we -- when i see 22,000 jobs, could we not just really get together and say, there are 3 million people, 3 million jobs that cannot be filled right now.

there are 14 million people not working. so, just with targeted efforts and us just getting together and being aggressive in how we give those people -- could we not just say hey, let's create 1 million jobs and just do it? >> i think what you are saying is exactly what the president has said in this administration has said. the nuts and bolts of that is part of what you see happening around you -- part of the pieces that come out to do that is we have to have small and large businesses, our supply chain connected to our training programs, our improvements in education. that is one of those things i have to say i hope you take away from today, which is, when you actually come here, and you see what is happening, there is a lot of talk about what does not

go right in washington. on the other side we are taking a program that is out there and focusing it. now was the time we have to be efficient time doing what you said. if it is workforce training, we have to make a better match. when of the ways we are doing it, i am proud to say, is that small business has a much larger voice. we are listening. we are finding ways to get what small businesses need in making those connections, and part of it is a retail operation. it is happening in clusters, with our neighbors, with linkages between folks like the department of agriculture, that operates in rural america, and our forces are small business groups. if you see ways in your community is that we can be of more help, that we can facilitate the activities of

your business to find more capital, more trained workers, connect, and get more permits, we are committed to being on the ground. whether it is the select usa operation, or our arms on the ground operations, we have 900 small business development centers, and if you are thinking about issues you have been growing your business, we want to make sure what ever door you open in the federal government you can navigate your way to a solution that is helpful to you. that is how we need to make government work. s to be seamless to you whether you are navigating -- it has to be seamless to you whether you are navigating from the fda, to the labor department.

the president announced a website for small businesses. there is the sba.gov. those are places you can come and put in what you are looking for, and we can find more and more effective ways of connecting you to those federal resources. now, do we have a closing chat? i will take one more question, and we want to make sure that nancy will be here. i will take one more question. before that, i really want to say the president said to gene sperling coming over, and to be walking back over there that the discussions he has had with all of you, the things he has heard from all of you, you will be hearing that back because he really appreciated understanding where you are in bringing your business back to this country, what it will take for you to do it, and how we can be your

partner. >> i am a teacher at the rochester institute of technology in rochester, new york. this is been a great meeting. the academic side of the wonders to what extent we are measuring what is going on. on the good side we look a trade deficits and things like that. are there any efforts to measure this at a macro level and also individual case studies? >> we have good partners. >> we have a library that accumulates of the articles, all the published cases about work that has actually come back, and right now it has about 100 articles. it will be searchable, etc.. we encourage any of the media that is left to right lots of articles to push the trend, and

we can help you find the cases, and we can get them into the data base. when i searched it in the past, debt and the web, you find there reported cases of doing this. it is not absolute proof. he could just be there are reported better, but there is enough of it happening, and enough of the contract manufacturers that i talked to who say they're doing dramatically more today than they were a couple of years ago. it is still anecdotal, but our library would be the best quantification that i know of. >> on contact centers, i brought some papers and some of the metrics i use. >> i want to thank the panel and all of you for coming and

spending the time. all of you who helped put this together -- i think we have gr eg for some last words. thank you. thank you very much. [applause] >> great. thank you, everybody. we have one final speaker who want to get a chance to come over and say thank you, and it is my pleasure to introduce her. now that i worked in the white house and the government i get the chance to see how things work on the policy side, and the next speaker makes things happen for us on policy and makes sure that all of our policy is focused. i want to introduce the deputy chief of staff for policy. [applause] >> i want to think again the

business leaders, advocates, and officials who shared with us today, and the president and vice-president your stories about bringing jobs back to america. the president and a job -- vice president noted that america is the best place in the world to do business and create jobs. after hearing from you all today i think we can agree. throughout the day we ever the economics are clear that locating in the u.s. makes sense for companies that our manufacturing and providing services. the u.s. has added over three and a thousand manufacturing jobs in the last two years. -- 300,000 manufacturing jobs in the last two years the businesses are making choices because it makes sense for their bottom lines. from large businesses like ford, to international businesses like siemens, too small businesses like lincolnton furniture in north carolina, which is restarting operations

at a once-vacant plant. these companies are bringing jobs back because locating here offers a competitive job -- cost structure, the ability to provide better consumer service and to respond more quickly to customer needs. we have heard that nothing competes with made in america quality and reliability. as the president and vice president mentioned today, we are calling on other companies to follow your lead and to bring jobs back and invest in america. the president asks all companies to do whatever they can to bring jobs back here. we can, from the federal government's perspective do more, and should do more to accelerate the trends we've heard about today, and one of the reasons we wanted you to, is for your ideas about what we could do to make it easier for bringing jobs back to locate your businesses here in the

united states. the president has implemented policies like tax breaks and research and development credits, and the trade agreements have helped ensure your businesses can compete. today, you -- we have announced new initiatives, including proposals to reward companies that invest or bring back jobs to the u.s. the expansion to the recently- launched -- recently launched select u.s. aid program, increasing support for state efforts to promote investment in more than one mid-cities -- we of heard today that perhaps our greatest asset is our skilled and productive work force. we heard that over and over again about how much more productive our workers are. we will continue to develop partnerships between labour, education, and businesses, to

help ensure that america's work force is ready to respond to america put the future. in addition, we are working for build for america's future and the jobs council to ensure that it is a key element of our economic strategy. most of all, we thank you for taking your time for coming here today. we need to continue to partner with all of you. one of the biggest barriers to in-sourcing is a lack of awareness about the potential economic advantages of the u.s.. we hope we have helped to shine a bright light on the potential economic advantages of doing business right here in the u.s., and you will go out and continue to be ambassadors for that. by working together, we can address this lack of awareness, and we look forward to getting it done with the white house is your partner. thank you very much. -- as your partner. thank you very much. [applause]

>> ladies and gentlemen, if you prepared to accept, you will want to come through these doors. thank you for coming. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2012] [captioning performed by national captioning institute]

>> the white house gathering of small and large businesses talking about in-sourcing u.s. jobs and investing in america. they heard from president obama and vice president joe biden earlier. earlier this afternoon the president said he would put forward tax proposals that reward companies that choose to

bring jobs back to the u.s. and eliminate tax breaks for companies that move jobs overseas. it is likely we will hear some of those proposals in the state of the union address on january 24. here are the president's comments from this afternoon. it is about 20 minutes. >> ladies and gentlemen, tim ryan. [laughter] [applause] >> good afternoon, ladies and gentleman. first i would like to say thank you to president obama and the vice president joe biden for sitting down with us. i am the chairman of galaxies solutions. we specialize in custom software development for fortune 50 corporations with a focus in the health-care industry.

we share a common concern about one of our country's major problems and opportunities, the unemployment and under- employment of many fellow citizens. with something else in common. we are all actively, and creatively involved in doing something about the employment situation. we are here because we know much more needs to be and can be done. we believe an exchange of ideas will ultimately lead to more americans working. in the past we have seen jobs in the itunes sector go overseas. software development work was straightforward, and it went to companies where labor was inexpensive. challenges with quality, time zones, travel, currency fluctuation and turnover have made offshore based solutions less attractive. today, in software technology there is an amazing opportunity to use software to achieve amazing results, and make people's lives improve."

-- improved. we need to take advantage of available american talent did we ever opened a development center in downtown detroit. our program is called outsourced to detroit, and it is putting americans back to work. it is helping that region get back on its feet. we have established detroit as an i.t. hub. from a price standpoint, we are on par with offshore and we are winning. we are working to design the curriculum that makes college graduates the next generation of software technology workers in detroit and elsewhere in the usa. the american model and -- has been and will always be one of

delivering exceptional value in services and products. the generation of software systems built in detroit and elsewhere in the united states will help us make that point once again. i am honored and proud to introduce to you the leading proponent of american competitiveness, the senior executive with an overriding commitment to reappoint america's workforce, president barack obama -- reappointing america's workforce, president barack obama. [applause] >> thank you. thank you, everybody. please come have a seat. welcome to the white house, everybody. thank you for that introduction. i could not have enjoyed more the meeting that i had this morning because what these companies represent is a source of optimism and the enormous

potential for the future of america. what they have in common is they are part of a hopeful trend. they are bringing jobs back to america. you have heard of outsourcing. these companies are in-sourcing. these companies are choosing to invest in the one company with the most productive workers, the best universities, and the most creative and innovative and entrepreneurs in the world, and that is the united states of america. [applause] >> that is worth applause. [applause] >> that is exactly the kind of commitment to a country that we need, especially right now when we are in a make or break moment for those in the middle class and those aspiring to be in the middle class across the united states. all across the country and i need folks who grew up with a

faith that in america hard work paid off and responsibility was rewarded anyone could make it if they tried. those are the values my grandparents and my mother taught me. those are the values that built the best products, and the strongest economy and a large middle class the world as ever known. i think we understand that bargained as he rode for too many americans. the economy has changed rapidly. for many, the change has been painful. factories were people thought they would retire packed up and went overseas, where labor costs were cheaper. at the same time, we live in a global economy, and as other countries grow and develop middle class's of their own, global companies will pursue those markets, employed workers, and make investments all over the world. right now we are at an

inflection point. we are at a period where we have the opportunity for those jobs to come back, and the business leaders in this room are ahead of the curve. they recognize it. i will give you a few examples. after shedding jobs for more than a decade, american manufacturers have added jobs for two years in a row. that is good news. when a lot of folks are still looking for work, now is the time for us to step on the guest. that is why i pushed congress to extend the payroll tax cut this year sold 160 million working americans were not hit with a tax hike. now is a time to extend that tax cut for all of this year. it is the right thing to do, and we need to get that done, but we will need to do more, and that is why in the next few weeks we will put forward tax proposals that reward companies that choose to bring jobs home and

invest in america, and eliminate jobs for company -- tax breaks for jobs -- companies that are moving jobs overseas. there is an opportunity to the head right now. there are workers ready to work right now. that is why i set a goal of doubling exports of goods and services by 2014. we are a little ahead of schedule in meeting that goal. that is why with the help of our outstanding ustr, i was able to sign trade agreements with panama. that is why i fought for programs with our colleges saw workers remain the best. i do not want america to be a nation that is primarily known for financial speculation and racking up dead buying stuff from other nations.

i want us to be known for making products sold all over the world stand with made in america, and we can make that happen. [applause] >> i do not want the next generation of manufacturing jobs taking root in companies -- countries like china or germany. i want them in places like michigan, ohio, virginia, and north carolina, and that is a race that america can win. that is the race businesses like these will help us win. these are ceo's that take pride in hiring people in america, not is because it is the right thing to do for their bottom line, but also because it is the right thing to do for their workers, our committees, and our country. they are leading by example. i am proud of that as an american, but as president i also want to make sure they get some credit for it. just three years ago, for

example, we almost lost the american auto industry. today, the big three auto makers are turning a profit in manufacturing the next generation of fuel-efficient cars off the rest of the world wants to buy. [applause] >> ford motor co., that is represented by workers and management on this stage has committed to investing $16 billion in the united states by 2015. [applause] >> $16 billion. [applause] >> and, that includes bringing that about 2000 jobs, and shifting production from companies -- countries like china and germany, to states like ohio and missouri. master lock, and iconic company. when they looked at their company, they saw workers can

do their work at the same cost as workers in china. they're not exporting their products to china and europe. [applause] today, for the first time in 15 years, master lock's no huaxi complex is running at full capacity. you do not have to beat a big manufacturers to in-source of jobs. bruce cochrane's family had manufacture furniture for five generations. in 1996, as jobs began shifting to asia, the family sold their business, and bruce cochrane spent time in china and vietnam as a consultant for american furniture makers who insisted production. while he was there he noticed something he did not expect. the customers wanted to buy things made in america. he came home and started a new

company, lincolnton furniture, which operates out of the old family factors that have been shot down. he is even rehired many of the former workers from his family business. you also do not have to be a manufacturer to in-source jobs. you just heard tim, the ceo of a healthcare company in new jersey called galaxe solutions. they have hired 150 workers with their outsourced to detroit program and they plan on hiring up to 500. he said there are some really tell the people in detroit, and we are putting them back to work -- really talented people in detroit, and we are putting them back to work. whether you're a small business, or a large and effective corp., or a technology company, a historic brand, or a brand new start, in-sourcing jobs is a

smart strategy right now. we live in a global economy, but we heard from several experts and business leaders that we are at a point in time where factors like incredibly rising american productivity and increasingly competitive costs mean the economic case to invest in america and bring jobs back home is strong and is getting stronger. labor costs are going up in places like china. we have become much more productive. we continue to be the largest market in the world. so, we have this outstanding opportunity if everyone is partnering and getting together. that is the economic case. i believe there is a moral case. the former ceo of intel said it well. those of us in business have to

the wall -- two obligations -- a fiduciary responsibility to the shareholders that put us in our place, but there is another obligation i feel personally given that everything i have achieved and intel has achieved were made possible by a climate of democracy and -- provided by our domiciled, the united states. all of these folks on the stage are business people first, and they're looking at the bottom line, but they feel good about the fact that they are restoring hope and creating jobs here in the united states. that is part of the responsibility that comes with being a leader in america, not just to the shareholders, to the country that made all of this incredible wealth and opportunity possible. that is a responsibility we all have to live up to whether we are in the private sector or

the public sector, washington, or on wall street, because the more americans who succeed, the more america succeeds. my message to business leaders is simple -- test yourself or you can do to bring jobs back to the country that made your success possible, and i will do everything in my power to help you do it. we will have to seize this moment. american workers are the most productive and effective in the world when you factor in all the costs. we have the outstanding market, the most innovative s, we of the best research universities -- have the best research universities,

and part of what our session this morning was about was having people take a look at what this moment is and where we will be five years from now because when people take a second look, it turns out that the potential for job and the service industry is incredible. i said in a speech awhile back this moment is perfectly suited for our advantages. it is perfectly suited for who we are. the global marketplace is becoming more innovative, more creative, more transparent, faster, more adaptable -- that is who we are. that is our strength. we have to take a advantage of it. if we have leadership of the sort we see on this stage i am confident that not only can it make a difference for our middle class and those working into the middle class, but it also gives us an incredible opportunity to assure the future for our children and grandchildren, and that is my central goal and focus as a president, that it should be the

goal of the country, building a country where hard work is -- paid off, and a nation where those failures continued for generations to come. thank you to the people on the stage for being a great example. i hope you get a chance to hear their story because it is exciting and it gives you a sense of why i am incredibly optimistic about our prospects. thank you very much, everybody. [applause] ♪

♪ [applause] x president obama from about midday today. he is on his way to chicago for fund raising events, one of them will be live on c-span2 this evening. the new hampshire primary is over. mitt romney 1. his first pre-primary appearance

in south carolina. on thursday, talk-show host tavis smiley will lead a symposium on poverty and restoring prosperity. he will be joined by cornell west, michael more, and suze orman. earlier today, tavis smiley and mr. west joined us on "washington journal." .ost: our guests are co-host's thank you for being here. tavis smiley come thank you for being here. dr. cornel west. we want to talk about your symposium, we made in america, from poverty to prosperity. tavis smiley, you talked about

how poverty does not come up a lot during presidential campaigns organdy after may. guest: in 2008, during three presidential debates, the word party does not come up one time. the moderators do not raise it. they do not desk about it. there is a composite arrangement for poverty and not to be discussed. i think that is tragic. we cannot endure another campaign for the white house where the issue of party does not get addressed. that was four years ago, and now the numbers are abysmal. they keep climbing. more and more americans are falling into the ranks of the poor. the new poor are the former middle class. i do not know who mr. romney and mr. obama will speak to. they cannot speak to the banks of the middle class. we cannot go through this

campaign not addressing the concerns of the poor. dr. west and i say it is the telling of truth that allow suffering to speak. the numbers are clear. we have to address the bank's stock of the growing core. host: reflect on the new hampshire primary, and what you heard debated and talk about? see concernink we about fear and in zaidi as it relates to social issue which it as it relates to -- anxiety as it relates to social issues, but not as it relates to poverty. poor people are as precious, as a priceless as investment bankers, pharmacists, professors, or tacos.

host: in your opinion, -- talk show hosts. host: in your opinion, you say that there -- and its are complacent. guest: if the numbers are true, the politicians always want to speak to the banks of the middle class. it is not the they do not bode. it is there seems to be a bipartisan consensus that the poor do not matter. on the part of too many democrats, there are too many spineless and milquetoast democrats. on the right, mr. romney wins new hampshire last night, but whether it is mitt romney, ron

paul, rick santorum, or newt gingrich, this verbal so, this war of words being waged on the poor, i grandmother might say they need to answer to the prayer. there is a bipartisan consensus in this town that the poor don't matter, and that is why the issues don't get addressed. host: hispanics, 11%, whites, 7.5%. we are getting those numbers from the bureau of labor statistics. >> you cannot really trust those numbers because they don't really count the millions of fellow citizens who have given up looking for jobs, or part- time workers. it gets much higher than that, and again, the issue of poverty is a matter of national security, the same way iraq and afghanistan.

it is state of emergency, when you look into the hearts and minds and souls of poor people. it is just sad that we cannot shift away from the preoccupations of the middle classes and the plutocrats at the top with their big money to shape the debate, almost by the candidates in a certain sense, or disproportionately influenced the candidates. poor people are losing their homes, losing their jobs, the children wrestling with hunger and malnutrition and hardly even get -- host: our guests are dr. cornell west and tavis smiley. this event, remaking america from poverty to prosperity will

be broadcast live on c-span, thursday, january 12. you can see a list of guests who will be appearing there, including michael more. tavis smiley, why not bring these people together? what you hope to get out of this? guest: i don't want to endure another campaign redo 9 detractor -- traction on this particular issue. last summer we got on a bus and traveled around the country, 11 states, 18 cities, trying to put a spotlight on the poor in this country. the week of programming on pbs. call we just rebroadcast that week last week on my pbs show. this is the next thing, to bring these poverty experts together and talk about how we cannot just reduce poverty but eradicate poverty. i figure if you bring these kind

of voices together, the drumbeat gets louder. occupy wall street certainly beat the drum last year, but this drumbeat must get louder between now and november. i am hoping that tomorrow night we can advance the conversation. in april, we are working on a new book called "the rich and the rest of us." just trying to find a creative way to use the platforms i have to get this issue discussed. host: janet from baltimore, maryland. go ahead. caller: what do they think obama is doing? he may not say the word for, -- the word poor, but he is doing all he can to get jobs created and do things for them.

host: she said, do you not see that happening? in her opinion, the president is trying to work toward helping the poor. guest: when you begin your campaign give nearly a trillion dollars to investment bankers and they have zero% in terms of assets to loans, that is not a good start in terms of fighting for the poor. in the last few months, he has been giving some very good speeches about jobs. we applaud that. certainly he has been fighting for the payroll tax cut. we applaud that. that is not in any way a substitute for serious fighting against poverty and certainly not a substitute for massive jobs creation and investment and housing and jobs with a living wage. we applaud the president when he does the right thing. but the president has been

schizophrenic, and as long as you have tim geithner running things, he is not in any way a fighter for the poor, and he is running the treasury department. i hear what she is saying, obama is still much better than the republicans, but he has so much more to do in terms of being a fighter against poverty. guest: people think there is either obama or mr. romney, those are the two forces that come together. there is a third choice, and that is a better president barack obama. i don't understand people that don't get the fact that just because someone is trying, that cannot be pushed, lovingly and respectively, to do better. i think that is what our role in society is, to offer them ideas and suggestions, but to push them to be better at what they do. this is not casting aspersions or demonizing the president. it is pushing him to be more aggressive and have more

backbone in standing up and fighting for the poor. this is not just a critique of president obama. i said three times. there is a bipartisan consensus in this town that the poor do not matter. the republicans, democrats, the left, the right, everybody has to be better about making poverty a priority. that is the bottom line. poverty is not a priority. host: president obama is hosting the white house jobs forum. c-span will be covering that. he is calling it -- calling it in sourcing american jobs rather than outsourcing american jobs. tavis smiley, is that helping out, in sourcing american jobs? guest: i think so. the president has been making a lot of speeches and making the moves to expect a politician to make it wants to get reelected.

as i said before, his white house has compromised and capitulated on too many things. on the deficit reduction package, it does not extend unemployment benefits. did not lose a single corporate loophole or raise any additional revenue. you get the write-off, but the walk seems to be something different. -- you get the right talk. we want to push our friends in the media who will be moderating these debates. the way the issue gets sustained on the american agenda is that those of us in the media raise our voices and use our platform to challenge folks to talk about how we produce and eradicate poverty. i don't know how it becomes real if those of us in the media don't do our job to keep the issue front and center. caller: i want to thank the

gentleman for bringing this to the forefront. i do think it needs to be addressed. there is always going to be some people that just don't want to change their situation in life. there are just going to be people that are not going to put forth the effort. if we want to know -- there are some people with some real poverty out in this world. here in the united states, we have a warped sense of what it really means to not have anything. what about the role of civic organizations and churches? they are saying we need the government to step up. as you said, it just continues to get worse. i just don't trust them on the left or right to get this thing done. the dissolution of the family unit is really what it is. the wealth gap is really a

generational thing. we have to start with the building block of society, which is the family unit. with people who are less fortunate, it just repeats itself. >> i think our republican brother makes a good point in terms of the family and civic institutions. it is difficult to keep the family together when you don't have a job, when you have bullets flying all for your housing project and so forth. it has to do with structures and institutions. when the trade unions are pushed against the wall, when workers are pushed out like these private equities -- private equity companies. the shareholders walk of rich and the workers are dealing with foreclosure and unemployment.

individual responsibility is very important. we have to deal with a massive transfer of wealth from poor, working people to the well to do with policy tied to washington that is not subsidizing and facilitating the which fellows getting even richer. host: how can we empower the poor to break away from this cycle? >> we are very serious about looking at the fact that there are the perennially poor in this country. there are the new poor and near poor. in some ways, it is almost tragic. troubles me that we are talking about poverty now because the middle class is falling into the ranks of the poor. we have not had a sustained conversation since the johnson years about poverty for those who have been caught perennially in this situation. we are laying out specific ideas

of what can and ought to be done to start to lift those who are perennially poor out of the gutter of poverty that they find themselves in. a quick comment about afghanistan. we are spending countless millions, our government, countless millions rebuilding afghanistan, rebuilding iraq. we spend millions bombing the heck out of these places and killing innocent women and children. then we come behind it with diplomacy to rebuild these countries. the park where do the point i want to make is simply this. we can spend that kind of money, if we could rebuild our own urban areas, something could get done on poverty.

guest: we spent $300 billion since 1980 on jails, prisons, and the criminal-justice system. when it comes to education, housing, jobs for the poor, we pulled back because we believe they are undeserving. we have criminalize poverty, and we are going to have to pay for it. host: land in baltimore on the -- independent line. caller: i am an inner-city educator and i have held several forums with parents. 85% of those that participated are unemployed, and they were unable to get a job because of criminal background and credit history.

places where you try to apply for a job, they want a credit report done. i don't think that president obama should be held accountable for the low unemployment rate whenwhen employers are crucifying people for having past criminal backgrounds, and it could be as simple as a misdemeanor, but if you are in the court system considered guilty, that remains on your record for the rest of your life. they are being chastised after paying their debt to society in spending five months to five years in society. you have paid your debt to society. when you come out and look for a job you are turned away because of your credit history and past. guest: let me say very quickly that we agree with your assessment. too often the poor are demonized and penalized.

the poor are treated in four ways by our body politics. number two, this is why we have to have a robust and creative conversation about how to help the poor. the white house and other leaders want to beat up on the president, but the white house and other leaders can use the bully pulpit they have to talk about these issues. we were in a conversation last night about the fact that there are too many american employers like the ones you referenced will direct you on line these days to allow your application. once you get online they tell you if you are presently unemployed, do not apply. there are people that get penalized that is not right. again, it is not about

demonizing or belittling the burden on president obama. it is about saying again that the republicans and democrats in this town, and on this campaign for the white house, the republican nominee and the democratic nominee have got to be respectfully and lovingly push to address the issues of the poor in this country. that is all we are san. guest: this is a very important point in which the criminal justice system imposes such major constraints on poor people gaining access to jobs and housing and other opportunities. what is upsetting also is the degree to which criminal

behavior is not investigated and prosecuted, market manipulation, predatory lending. what do they do? they get jobs in washington in the white house and other places. they go back and forth, back and forth. there has been criminal behavior on wall street that at this moment that has not been in any way as counted. host: i wanted to show this graphic, the number of children in poverty by race and ethnicity. you can see here different paths charted. you can see the numbers relatively low for whites in comparison. peeking up and going back down. now they are back up. 6.1 percent signed among latinos. 5.0% among whites. 4.4% among blacks. that is in terms of millions. guest: 40% of all black children.

we need red. we will never forget our precious indigenous babies. american indian party among young people is obscene. guest: we want to add to that chart, indiana university school of public and environmental affairs has a white paper that we commission that is out literally today, so we're happy to be on c-span talking about the new data and the most recent imports about party in america and what the great recession has done to the american people. there are couple points i want to highlight about this new report. we now know the younger you are in this country, the more likely you are to be in poverty. that is unacceptable. the younger you are, the more likely you are to be in poverty. number two, we know we have the largest ever, the most significant number of americans

who have been long-term unemployed than at any point in this nation's history. we did not collect the data since 1948. perhaps most damning about this report is the fact that even as the economy starts to experience some sort of an uptick -- there has been debate lately about what the december jobs numbers mean, or is this a trend to something better -- i know all of us are hoping towards a trend. the point is even when this economy starts to uptick, the number of the poor are going to grow. because of the pace of the recovery. because of a long-term unemployment, and because of the high rates of unemployment. even when the economy starts to uptick, the numbers indicate the poor will still grow.

guest: we have what we called jobless recovery. what is the criteria of a recovery? what are we talking about? just the language itself needs to be reexamined in the constructed. host: let's look at details from the new white paper out. among the bullet points, the findings of this paper by indiana university -- you just mentioned a hard time young people are having here. guest: that is why so many young people joined occupied

movement. they understand their future is not so bright. we say all the time that something is wrong with a country that forces their children to surrender their life chances before they ever know their life choices. that is where america is right now. host: democratic calller from maryland joining us. caller: good morning. mr. west, you are my hero. i look at things like this -- they say they blame things on the president because of the job situation and certain things. one thing you have to realize is no one is holding a gun to your head to not hire people. if you have the money and there ain't no problems hiring people, you have made money. that is obvious. the richer even richer and the

poor are even poorer. look at the situation. if ewing got money, you ain't got nothing in this country. this was by design. i have never win -- been one to hand out. i want to hand up. don't keep telling me i am brainwashed by the democratic party. and i am not brainwashed by no one. i am a man that stand on my own 2 feet. that is why i choose to i want as the president. -- who i want as president. you have to keep the president's speech to the fire. you have to push him.

he has to have the extra hand up with a stronger backbone. people think because he is fair skinned then he is not that bad. you know how things go when they talk about it your skin is fair, you are not such a threat. people have to understand, and all you have to look it is -- how urban places that use to be dominated by blacks where the crime rate was so high. now you go down there and see how it as changed in the crime rate is down, because that is a part they wanted to go through. look at the difference for blocks of the street where they are still selling drugs. do not tell me you cannot control drugs in this country. host: that is a lot of points.

guest: when he talks about the fact that too many american employers are not hiring people -- he is right about that. we know companies can do better. we know more jobs are being shipped abroad by these companies to make more profits here at home. we know that these companies nowadays, and some could argue and we are debating in this new book, we are debating whether the economy will ever recover in the way we think it should. primarily because these most rigid national companies understand they can do just as much with us. -- primarily because these multinational companies understand they can do just as much with less. the demand for the product is so great, they have to put more people on the line to make it happen is the only reason. other than that, they want to

squeeze out more profits for shareholders. there is no competitive reasons for folks to hire people. here is what we're talking about. we bailed out wall street, and the very people we bailed out are now sitting on a trillion dollars it will not turn around and invest into the economy to hire people. if the media and those of us that have platforms do not raise these issues, how did these issues get addressed? host: that is why i think those that have the courage to raise these issues. -- guest: that is why i think those that have the courage to raise these issues. do not let anybody convince you you are only a collection of interests. we have principles. there are certain things called integrity, a memory. a person is not a nobody because they have no money. they may have more love and joy

and integrity and spiritual mobility san a rich person who is empty in his soul. this is very important. we talk about martin luther king jr. next week. we talk about dorothy day. they taught us there are certain things about human life better not reducible to market calculation. there are human values that are not reducible to market price. all we talk about is money, money and power and power. that is the road to spiritual emptiness. there has to be more than that. i know the brother understand. when you look at barack obama, we vote for interest and principal. the reason why barack obama is better than republicans is because we have principles. the reason why we criticize him is because we of principles. if all we have is interest in not principles, we are reduced to a animalistic calculation

about interest on interest, interest. is that all life is about? how empty to go to the grave about. host: when you talked about holding the president speak to the fire. jimmy writes in on twitter -- guest: that is the central question. they are scared. and they do not want to be unpopular. we are not committed deep enough to our long-term principles. it is our short-term consideration. i think this white house is -- does not like being critiqued. they are very temperamental

about that. what happens is, and this last calller was right, there is no doubt about the fact that the president has a vicious head when he is running up against every day. what he needs is a tail wind. he needs us to get behind him and push him. group presidents are not born, they are made. they need a tail wind to push them into greatness. there is no abraham lincoln without douglas pushing him. great presidents have got to be pushed into their greatness. we know obama has a head wind, and ugly, nasty strong gale force headwind. he needs a tail wind. the white house needs to understand this tail wind is not to disrupt your flow, it is to help you get to give you some velocity.

host: the last time you appeared, you said before the 2008 election, senator obama appeared on your show record week came on to talk, but since then you have not been invited to the white house, nor has the president agreed to appear on your program. guest: i am afraid to even answer that question. the last time i sat at this table -- i did not say anything. i was asked a question by c- span, have you interviewed the president? the next a headline -- "smiley whines about the fact he was not in the white house." i know full well whether or not i had been invited to the white house. nothing has changed. with regard to be invited to the white house, with regards to the interview request. he continues to talk to everybody else but us.

someone will take this comment out of context again. host: recently you said this in "washington post" -- guest: he is long interviews with brother bill o'reilly. i think from the left of there is a reluctance. in general this administration has been reluctant to engage the joseph stieglitz. let me tell you this, brother tavis smiley in michelle obama were selected among the top 100 people in the world. we saw her in new york.

she was lovely, kind, sweet. we know she was brilliant. that was not obama verses others in that sense. the show reaches out and will hug. she has always been kind in that regard. she has criticism of us, and that is fine, but she does reach out in that sense. if she is reaching out on behalf of the president, then there's been some connection of the obama family. but the president himself -- you start hanging around with rahm emanuel -- these folks push you in some certain direction. you are affected by who you spend time with. host: let's hear from john in new york. turn down your tv. caller: how are you doing? i respect you all brothers. the only way we will get the economy back together is a we

get back the industry. we have to bring back manufacturing companies. when we were doing the manufacturing thing, we had a lot of jobs. all the manufacturing plants were going north. because our manufacturing jobs, we have these jobs available. the people's standard of living was a lot higher. we notice all the schemes behind-the-scenes that manipulate the legitimate government of the people. we have to really take a look at that. nobody is talking about that. but obama we have a lot of hope in him. i hate and distrust in government somewhat because of the secret associations that

these pollutants figures have. host: and next year went to talk about an article in the atlantic called making it in america. it is about keeping jobs here and why they're here versus going overseas. guest: he is right. this country has lost its place as the leading manufacturer. it is a couple of things. as i have said the the issue, it is the greedy american corporations to find it cheaper to do it and other places around the world. look at the epicenter of so much of what is wrong with this company -- country. number two, it comes back to poverty and why we're doing what we're doing and why the conversation tomorrow night is so important. we have to push our leaders. if they're going to get away with all of this, at the very least the government has got to

have an aggressive robust job training -- job retraining program. you have to retrain the american workers to have more jobs. something is wrong with this country when military veterans are more likely to be unemployed. i want to get that out there, because if we cannot do right by them and find ways to retrain them and put them into the work force, there is no hope for the rest of us. guest: we heard from so many veterans that are down and out. we heard from them that they uphold their indivisibility, but have not given up. that is what is a wonderful about it. so many say they still have a

sense of humanity, resiliency. you may see them on the streets down and out, but they are clever in terms of how they survive. most are not involved in criminal activity. all they want is just a chance. that actually was inspiring. host: our guests are dr. cornell west, and tavis smiley the co-host together the radio show. they're having an event tomorrow, remaking america. that will be a george washington university and broadcast live here on c-span. it will be rebroadcast on pbs for three nights starting on january 16. other guests include the gentleman joining me now. susie old men, michael moore, jeffrey sacks and others will be guests.

that is tomorrow night here on c-span at 8:30. thank you for coming in and talking to us. >> will have that symposium with tavis smiley and cornell west tomorrow. they will be joined by filmmaker michael moore and susie orman. one day after winning the new hampshire primary and 10 days before the south carolina primary, mitt romney holds a campaign rally this evening in colombia. that is live this evening at 6:10 eastern. president obama will have a stop at the chicago illinois forum live at 6:50 p.m. eastern on c- span2. debbie wasserman smith was in new hampshire talking about the

presidential race and the outcome of the new hampshire primary. this is a forum for presidential candidates hosted by the new england council. it is 40 minutes. >> welcome, everyone. i want to welcome you all. if i am the executive director of the new hampshire institute of politics. i want to welcome you all to the kickoff to the 2016 new hampshire presidential primary. i was going to deliver a better line than that, but some people thought might be too exhausted. the new england council and the new hampshire institute of politics and become a must stop location for all the

presidential candidates, reporters, are distinguished guest today, and we are very excited about that. jim is a way and larry is in place from the newfoundland council today. i want to thank our sponsors. there are betters in the back. they are responsible for making these breakfasts happen, he and they are our partners through this process. great companies, particularly here in new hampshire and new england. we have a few dignitaries today. we have the man responsible for much of the activity in san and some college in the past week. we have our presidents cup, many dignitaries here including the governor's chief of staff, representative mcmahon who was helpful in bringing this event together today.

terry shoemaker is here today, endeavour, senator foster, all here today. i want to mention our great friend, kathy sullivan, former chair of the party. around applause for all of them. [applause] >> for purposes of introduction, i want to introduce our friend, jim. he is on the board at the institute of politics. he is a longstanding, great new hampshire right and an adviser to president obama. [applause] >> thank you, neal. when neil introduces someone has

a longstanding new hampshire person, that means he is really starting to get old. let me welcome you all here today. they deserve a round of applause. they played a big role this year in the primary. [applause] bother jonathan did his part this year. he was lobbying very hard for outstanding weather for election day. he pulled that off and then send the message, you can let it go now and tomorrow we will get 10 inches of snow. father jonathan, congratulations to you or the outstanding job this primary season. i am very honored to be here today to introduce our special guest. i did notice that ovid is here now to finally endorse a presidential candidate.

last night was exciting, whether you or a democrat or republican. new hampshire lived up to its part as the first in the nation primary. as neil said, today is the first day of the general election contest beginning here. it is only appropriate after months of republican candidate crossing the state that we have the chairman of the democratic national committee here to speak to us, talk a little bit about last night's results, and what lies ahead for the election here in new hampshire as we head toward november. debbie wasserman schultz is one of those high-energy people. she is a member of the u.s. congress, formerly a member of the florida legislature. she likes to tell people this is a state she loves to visit and vacation in, and i think tomorrow when we see the weather, we will be telling her, your state is one we like to

visit and vacation in as well. she has been a strong advocate for the president and the policies of the democratic party. when i introduce people, i like to tell one little personal story about them. this kind of sums up the kind of person that debbie wasserman schultz is. a while back when she was diagnosed with breast cancer, she never let that slow her down. she continued the fight, continue working for the causes excessive believe then, fighting for families and working people in this country. she also used that experience and got legislation passed that helps educate women on issues relating to breast cancer and also prevention. and i think you can say that based on what she has done, there are a lot of women in this country that are healthier today

and a lot of women living longer to that. that is the kind of leadership we all respect. [applause] so it is my pleasure to introduce to you the chairman of the democratic national committee, debbie wasserman schultz. [applause] >> thank you very much. jim, thank you so much for that incredibly kind introduction, and i appreciate your acknowledgement of my status as a survivor. i know there are a lot of survivors in this room, just based on the statistics. the opportunity to use my profile and position to raise awareness and help make sure everyone has an opportunity to catch their cancer early like i was able to is incredibly important. that is what this is all about. politics is about making the

world a better place and making life better for other people. i am sure that is why all of your here in this room. that is why i do what i do, every single day. this is an incredibly exciting opportunity for me. i am absolutely thrilled to be here. the deaths of the feeling that i have for the state of new hampshire. this really is a home away from home for my family. my husband has spent his entire life, growing up as a child on the lake, with his family who has had a home there for the project for 50 years. car the last five years we have had our home nearby. my state representative is here, great to be with her. i get to have multiple representation. the representatives that i have been florida, i like to say i am debbie wasserman schultz, from

paradise. i have a wonderful opportunity to spend time here in this great state, and hospitality here, the people here are absolutely wonderful and warm. it is really our favorite place in the entire world. you have an opportunity to speak at the politics and a eggs series has become such a mainstay of presidential politics and nationally, and particularly here in new hampshire pericarp father, congratulations on pulling off yet another primary in the state of new hampshire, being our host. the circus that the media has thrown on your campus, your students have been incredible. it has been great to interact with them over the last few days. the institute of politics has

just done an absolutely terrific job. thank you so much, and congratulations. this morning, the country is waking up focused on new hampshire and the important message that granite state voters delivered yesterday. yesterday, tens of thousands of new hampshire's voters went to the polls to vote for president obama in an uncontested primary. they clearly wanted to make their voices heard and send a message that they support the hard work obama has been doing to turn our economy around and begin to make the progress we need to make to lift people up and make sure that every american has a fair shot at the american dream, that everyone in america has an opportunity to be successful. this is in clear contrast to the message sent by voters in republican primary. we saw mitt romney ultimately come out on top. he now moves on to south

carolina as a wounded candidate. over the last few months, he has been regularly trending toward 45% support among republican voters here in new hampshire. he enjoyed nearly a 30% lead over the rest of the republican field. yesterday's primaries could not have happen soon enough for him, because his support in the state was rapidly eroding. seemed to me that more people got to know mitt romney, the less they liked him. his margin of victory last night fell short of meeting expectations, especially when you consider the fact that mitt romney is a part-time resident of new hampshire, and that he raised a family and served as governor of massachusetts right next door. add to that that he has been running for president here for the last seven years. for anyone who was watching, prior to last not primary, mitt romney had not been having a very good week here. he wounded himself in a few

different episodes that left new hampshire voters wondering whether he really left american voters wondering whether he understands the needs and concerns and the worries of working in middle-class families and what they are going through in this country. a few days ago during a campaign event, mitt romney attempted to relate to those in the granite state by making the claim that he once feared getting a pink slip. cornyn hampshire voters and voters across the country, not only does it not ring true, it suggested a disconnection of middle-class america. many hard-working americans were rubbed the wrong way by his comment that he enjoys being able to fire people. no matter what context listen to that remark in, when employment relationship ends, it is never enjoyable. it is never something that is fun. it should be uncomfortable,

whether it was warranted or not. i think that just really was another example of the disconnect between mitt romney and just average, working folks. he claims he created 100,000 jobs during his time at bain capital. republican candidates an independent fact sectors agreed that he did not create jobs as a corporate buyout specialist. he made a profit at any cost by outsourcing jobs, closing plants, and bankrupting companies. deliberately bankrupting companies in order to make a profit. these are incidents that show and out of touch attitude and insensitivity on mitt romney's part to the challenges of working and middle-class folks are facing today. i think that contributed to a drop in his support among new hampshire voters over the past couple of days. what has worst repercussions for

romney is the fact that he leaves new hampshire's a weak candidate with the central rationale for his candidacy unraveling before our eyes. his campaign headquarters now has a for lease signed on the door. president obama of the campaign is staying put, firmly rooted here in new hampshire, all the republican and that is have been fighting for the nomination, obama campaign staff and volunteers have been focused on laying the groundwork for victory in november. they are making sure president obama has the resources and grass-roots support to win in new hampshire by organizing neighborhood by neighborhood and block by block. that is the kind of campaign we have always run, door to door and neighbor to neighbor. it is the kind of campaign that new hampshire voters expect and appreciate and is a tremendous source of pride here. you kick the tires and look under the hood. you just really get an opportunity to closely examine

exactly who these folks are, a much different experience and my home state of florida, where we have 11 media markets. q cannot run that kind of presidential campaign in florida. you have a special appreciation for just to these candidates are. we are taking the retail politics of new hampshire very seriously. we have seven office open statewide as of yesterday. for open yesterday. we have 20 paid staff and the state. we have had 500 meetings, 3201 on one meetings, tens of thousands of phone calls. we have hit the ground running, leading up to today, and from now until november 6. an effort to build the most dynamic grass-roots campaign in the history of american politics. we are running the campaign door to door in key states across the country.

our staff and volunteer or connecting israel americans every day in talking to them about the need to preserve all the change we have been able to deliver together under the president's leadership and with their support. we know what that change looks like. it is change like passing the affordable care act to restore health care as a basic cornerstone of middle-class security in america, and guarantee that insurance companies cannot drop you are denied coverage because you have a pre-existing condition. when i was diagnosed with breast cancer, who -- as someone who lives with a pre-existing condition, i cannot tell you the appreciation and value that has brought to my life, knowing that on the day i was diagnosed, i was one job loss away from being uninsured or uninsurable, and that problem was solved for me by president obama. that cannot happen to me anymore, nor to the millions of women who face that clear every single day. that is incredibly important.

that is what the role of government is for. governments can make sure that the private sector can help give opportunities for health security to all americans. it is following through on the president's promise, like when he promised to end the war in iraq and bring home our servicemen and women. happen in just a few weeks ago. it is ensuring that wall street plays by the same rules as main street and ensuring there is a consumer protection watchdog looking out for them. it is wiping the discriminatory "don't ask, don't tell" policy of the books, so that all americans can serve the country they love and not lie about who they are. it is breaking our dependency on middle east oil, doubling fuel efficiency standards and saving americans money at the pop. it is making the bold decision to rescue the american automobile industry and save 1.4 million american jobs.

had mitt romney and any of the republican candidates had their way, they would simply lead detroit go bankrupt. for the first time since 2004, we now have all three american automobile manufacturers' operating at a profit. that is a big deal and really important. if left to the republican candidates, particularly mitt romney, we would not even have an american automobile industry to talk about or be proud of. that is what change has looked like with president obama in my house. the election will be about which candidate can get the economy back on track and restore security to families that has eroded over the past few decades. it will be a dramatic contrast. that is why our campaign is focused on the clear choice the american people will face in november. whether to continue to move forward as a nation, or if we returned to the same failed policies of the past that nearly caused a second great depression. the republican candidates have laid out their economic vision,

and it is one that looks backward. they have are amongst themselves on the campaign trail over which of them can repeal wall street reform fast enough, or who is the most committed to ending medicare as we know it. we see continued support for policies that would cut social security, slash funding for education, and extend giveaways for the wealthiest americans and big corporations, while asking middle-class families to foot the bill. under president obama's leadership, we have made critical progress on the road to economic recovery. we have increased manufacturing job growth the most since 1997. prior to the obama administration, the last year the country saw manufacturing job growth was 1997. the president has been fighting for the middle class and those struggling to make it to the middle-class since day one of his presidency. 95% of americans have received a tax break under president obama. q. has cut taxes to small

businesses 17 different time. last month, the president said enough with the partisan games and trying to score political points as the expense of working and middle-class families across this country. obama stared down congressional republicans and he won. millions of folks still struggling to make ends meet did not see their taxes go up this month. it is clear that the private sector job growth is beginning to turn the corner. we are making slow but steady progress. as the president has been telling the american people, we can and must do more. his message to hard-working folks in new hampshire and across the country is that we must continue to rebuild and work toward rebuilding our economy by making sure that hard work pays, that everyone does their fair share, and that responsibility is rewarded, so

that america's working families can retain -- reclaim the security they have lost. that is the president's vision for keeping america moving forward and continuing on the path of growth and progress. over the next 10 months, this is the message we will be bringing to voters across the country. the american people have a serious choice to make in november. the stakes are very high. as a mom with three beautiful young children who are my number one priority, i know i will be rolling up my sleeves and working so hard every day from now until election day to make sure i can do my best to help american voters choose president obama and send him back to the white house. if they don't, that will reverberate on our children, on my children, for decades. the result of a wrong decision will impact their lives, and as their mom, there is no one i will more fiercely protect and my kids and the kids of my

constituents. i know you feel the same way. our campaign will work tirelessly to make sure voters know that if they really president obama to a second term, they will continue to have a true advocate in the white house will stop at nothing to give every american the chance to go as far as their hard work and dedication will take them. that is how we blaze the trail to victory and send the president back to the white house. thank you so much for the opportunity to speak to you this morning, and thank you for this tradition. it is very, very important. thank you. [applause] i will be happy to take any questions. only easy ones, though. >> i was looking at the exit

poll demographics last night, where mitt romney was weeks was among first-time voters and beyond boaters. how do we go about attracting those voters to president obama? >> younger voters especially are deeply concerned about making sure that as they embark on the next stage of their life -- these are young people at the beginning of their adulthood. they know that they need to be able to make sure that higher education is affordable for them, that they will not be drowning in the debt of their student loans for their lifetime, and they have an opportunity to get a good job that pays a decent wage after that education experience. making sure they know that president obama has gone to bat for them, making sure we increase the amount of pell grants available to them, and make them available to so many moreng