U.S. Manufacturing Makes Strides Toward Comeback

FOX Business Scoreboard - Small Biz Optimism Takes a Beating From Market
Jun 27, 2011 Marlin Steel Wire President Drew Greenblatt discusses Small business owners and the economy

FOX Scoreboard: >> The good news from the jobs report today was that manufacturing is coming back. The numbers are looking so good in fact that if the U.S. manufacturing sector were an economy, it would actually be bigger than the GNP of China.

ScoreBoard has also reported on U.S. businesses who have been bringing their manufacturing back to the United States from China, but still a lot that needs to be done and Drew Greenblatt, President of Marlin Steel Wire Products, testified on Capitol Hill yesterday about how we can shore-up our manufacturing base even more. Drew, good to see you, thanks for coming in.

For those who have been poo-pooing our manufacturing sector, saying oh, we must be beat by a lot of people, the U.S., the world's largest manufacturing economy, it produces 21% of all global manufactured products, U.S. manufacturing alone makes up 11% of our nation's GNP, so it's huge - it's the biggest boy on the block.

DREW GREENBLATT >> Absolutely. Not only that, they're great jobs. The average manufacturer makes $74,000 a year and that's good money. You can own a home, you can own a car, you can send a kid to college with that kind of money. These are jobs we really need to value.

FOX Scoreboard: >> Absolutely and they have good benefits too, in fact they're almost as good as some of those public sector jobs we've been hearing about. How has your company been doing by the way?

DREW GREENBLATT >> We've been doing very well. We've had 4 straight years of record revenue.

FOX Scoreboard: >> Wow.

DREW GREENBLATT >> Record profit and we're hiring and we're growing. We're upbeat.

FOX Scoreboard: >> Ok, now there's still, as I mentioned, a lot that needs to be done as I was talking to Lindsay, we'd have to have a jobs report today for the next twenty years to get back to to where we were 5 or 6 years ago in terms of 5% unemployment. What's key in your mind, particularly to reinforce the manufacturing sector?

DREW GREENBLATT >> That's a very important question because if we do it right, we can turn this economy around, we could really reduce unemployment much quicker than the current very pathetic pace that we're knocking down unemployment.

FOX Scoreboard: >> Ok, so what's the first thing that we should be doing?

DREW GREENBLATT >> Well right now, our American companies, American factories are taxed at very high rates. We're taxed at rates over 35%. For example, in Canada, they're taxed half as high as us. They're taxed at 18%. So if we could slash our tax rates down to like 25% or even better at 18% where Canada is, we'll see a huge boom in American manufacturing. You'll see a lot of stuff come back from Canada, You'll see a lot of stuff come back from China and Mexico because we can make it here much more efficiently.

FOX Scoreboard: >> Here is the key; this is the point that I hope you really drove home yesterday when you were testifying before Congress, more than 70% of American manufacturers are S-Corporations that file taxes at the individual rate. So for all that propaganda from President Obama and other Democrats saying that in fact, we just want to raise taxes on the very rich, 70% American manufacturers, if the tax rate was raised and the highest rate would have affected those small companies.

DREW GREENBLATT >> Exactly. Most manufacturers have 25 employees. Most manufacturers are little guys. They're not the huge guys. When you think you're bashing the rich, what you're doing is you're beating up little factories and we're the guys creating the really good jobs, the middle-class jobs that get you a car, that get you a home, that can enable you to send your children to school.

FOX Scoreboard: >> Did that message resonate, particularly with the Democrats who were pushing the propaganda that this was just going to help the rich if we kept rates the way they are or lower them a little bit.

DREW GREENBLATT >> It was actually pretty frustrating because there was only one Democrat that stayed for the panel and all the other Democrats exited the facility.

FOX Scoreboard: >> Who was the one that stayed? Do you remember Drew?

DREW GREENBLATT >> Butterfield, the Democratic chairman, Butterfield. But there were 7 or 8 Republican congressmen, particularly freshmen that were there, asking very enlightened questions, really trying to probe and get to the bottom of what's going on and figure out ways we can grow American jobs, grow American manufacturing jobs.

FOX Scoreboard: >> That's unbelievable that they just take off like that. These are people who say they want to be informed but clearly they don't if they weren't listening to somebody who has skin in the game. Drew Greenblatt, great to see you again Drew, thanks very much for coming in, appreciate it.