More needs to be done
“But, a renaissance in American manufacturing is far from certain,” Scott said. He referenced his testimony at a hearing on American Manufacturing and Job Repatriation before the House Committee on Appropriates, last year. “We've regained only a fraction of lost factory jobs, our trade deficit with China in particular is growing and not shrinking, and capacity utilization is still well below pre-recession levels and historic norms.”
The issue of the U.S. trade deficit with China is one that is particularly worrying to Paul. His group points to an Economic Policy Institute report that claims the US-China trade gap has claimed 2.1 million U.S. manufacturing jobs between 2001-2011. “If Washington spent as much time worrying about the trade deficit as it did the budget deficit, our unemployment rate would be a lot lower than it is right now.”
“Putting pressure on the administration to demand action from the World Trade Organization when trade cheats like China illegally subsidize competitive industries and manipulate their currency to artificially cheapen their exports is one of the more effective strategies to help American manufacturers,” Paul said on the sidelines of the conference.
Other effective strategies on Paul’s wish list for government action include:
- Making the R&D tax credit permanent
- Easing access to credit – This is still a problem and a barrier especially for small companies.
- Building up our infrastructure
- Providing lower cost energy. He would like to see a bigger push toward renewable energy.
- Improving gobal procurement. All nations need to allow each other access to their markets.
These points are part of a larger Comprehensive Manufacturing Strategy that the group has been pressing.
Paul remains hopeful that with the right policies manufacturing will continue to grow. “Manufacturing has been one of the few bright spots in the recovery, and if we are going to meet the President’s goal of creating one million new manufacturing jobs by 2017, we’ll need an aggressive set of policy measures to make that happen.”
