Sen. Warner advocates manufacturing competitiveness

Sen. Warner advocates manufacturing competitiveness    The U.S. government should create incentives for certain types of companies to relocate overseas facilities and create jobs back home as a way to even out benefits for smaller communities disproportionately impacted by globalization, Sen. Mark Warner said last week.
   The freshman senator from Virginia said he favors open trade, but added more needs to be done to help certain parts of the country that depended on a single manufacturing plant in mass production industries because existing trade adjustment assistance and retraining efforts are not enough to revive those local economies.
   'It's important that we have a strong manufacturing sector,' Warner said, but noted that jobs in industries such as textiles and furniture will be hard to bring back.
   He called for policies and financial support for 'insourcing,' especially for high-end manufacturing that involves value-added production.
   Many manufacturers have outsourced their production to other countries where raw materials and labor are cheaper. Failure to beef up educational opportunities, install broadband communications and make transportation infrastructure improvements to link non-metropolitan regions to international gateways have made it difficult for many people to develop alternative livelihoods, Warner said.
   The answer is to marry up retrained workers with businesses that need a high-skilled workforce, he said at a supply chain infrastructure conference sponsored in Washington by the Commerce and Transportation departments.
   Warner recalled that as governor of Virginia in 2002-2006 his administration was able to broker a deal for a firm in India to bring a call center to Danville, a coal mining community. The influx of jobs dramatically changed the residents' attitude toward trade, he added.
   To counter the outsourcing of mid-level technology jobs, Warner started a $12 million fund to lay broadband cable 700 miles through economically distressed areas of Virginia. That allowed the Virginia officials at the time to also convince Northrop Grumman Corp., CGI and AMS to move 700 call center jobs to the southwest part of the state.
   'Too often economic development efforts by states are designed to steal from other states. I'd like federal money to supplement state and local money to attract jobs back from overseas to rural areas,' the senator said, adding he may sponsor legislation to do that.
   Warner also had a prescription to support the ailing domestic automobile industry. The government should approach states, local governments and Fortune 100 companies to pool their vehicle fleet purchases — a potential aggregate demand of 5 million units per year.
   'We could go to domestic and international carmakers alike and say, 'We'll give you a three-year, 15 million-unit purchase order, you build us a car (that averages above 50 mpg)' and let's see if we can have those vehicles actually built here in this country,' he said.
   'Actually have a demand-driven incentive to our auto industry rather than simply the approach we've had right now, which is 'let's write taxpayer checks to shore up what may be a 20th century business model.' '
   President Barack Obama earlier this week announced a program requiring automakers to improve mileage efficiency by 30 percent starting in 2016. ' Eric Kulisch