Aboard Air Force One
En Route Asheville, North Carolina
10:40 A.M. EST
MR. CARNEY: Welcome aboard Air Force One. It is fantastic to have you here. I know you all covered the President’s speech — State of the Union Address last night. As I think you might expect, we believe the speech went off very well and has been received very well. And as is tradition, the President is traveling the day after the State of the Union to amplify some of the aspects of his agenda that he talked about last night.
Today, his focus will be on the need to continue the trend towards a reinvigorated manufacturing sector in this country, and the measures we can take to push that trend forward.
For that reason, I have with me today the Principal Deputy Director of the National Economic Council, your friend and mine, Jason Furman, who I will turn this over to, to discuss today’s business.
MR. FURMAN: Great. Thanks, Jay. So one of the important questions the President posed in the State of the Union is what are we going to do to make America a magnet for jobs. An important part of that answer is manufacturing in America, and that’s what the President will be highlighting today.
He’ll be going to Linamar Plant — that’s a Canadian company that has four U.S. manufacturing facilities. They announced that this one was opening in 2011 to make parts for Caterpillar and other trucks. They employ 160 workers. They’re hiring another 40 at the end of the year.
And this is emblematic of the trend of insourcing that we’re seeing in the United States, in part due to the trained workers we have here in our country, the cost advantages we have in things like electricity because of our abundant natural gas, and our abilities as an exporter.
Because of all of that, we’ve seen 500,000 jobs added in manufacturing in the last three years. And the President wants to not just rest on that, but see what we can do to push it forward and accelerate the pace of job creation. And I think you have the fact sheet which goes through a whole range of them. Gene Sperling will be doing a detailed on-the-record briefing later. But I wanted highlight in particular three things that the President will be talking about today.
One is national manufacturing institutes. He announced one in Youngsville, Ohio last summer on — Youngstown, Ohio — thank you — last summer, that focuses on 3-D printing. In the State of the Union last night he said that this year we’ll be setting up three more; that’s by pulling and using our existing resources. In addition, he would like Congress to pass another trillion — a billion dollars to set up 15 more of those institutes around the country.
Second is corporate tax reform, which would lower tax rates overall, …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at The White House Press Office