Washington,
Feb 9, 2006 -
WASHINGTON – Congressman Patrick McHenry (R-NC) spoke with Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez about making the 10th District more economically competitive through education initiatives like the congressman’s Higher Education Coordinating Council during today’s Government Reform Committee hearing. The hearing was titled, “Sharpening Our Edge: Staying Competitive in the 21st Century Marketplace.” The transcript of the Q & A is below:
Congressman McHenry: Thank you Mr. Chairman, thank you for calling this important hearing, and Secretary Gutierrez, thank you so much for taking the time to be here. I appreciate your leadership in the Department of Commerce – it has been very good working with you. I think you are one of the outstanding Bush Administration appointees and I certainly appreciate your hard work and dedication, thank you. And the initiative we’re talking about today, the competitiveness initiative, is very important. My district in North Carolina, Western North Carolina, is going through a time of immense change. Overall unemployment nationally is somewhere around 5%, that’s wonderful – historic lows. In North Carolina we are facing nearly full employment, in some cases some economists would call it beyond full employment. We have an unemployment rate that’s around 4.7%. My district, however, is facing a time of change. We’ve been traditionally reliant on textiles and furniture industry jobs, manufacturing jobs generally. I have two counties, in fact, that led the state in unemployment. One faced last year for a few months an unemployment rate of about 13%. Another county faced an unemployment rate of around 11% at its height. That’s mainly due to the loss of furniture industry jobs. Now, certainly there are trade issues that we’re dealing with – competitiveness issues with China and the fact that China won’t float their currency, but that’s a question I’ll leave up to Secretary Snowe at the Department of the Treasury. So I will not burden you with those questions. But the focus that I’ve tried to place in my district is on getting the skills and the training necessary to compete in going forward. We can’t be relying on yesterday’s jobs; we have to be training for tomorrow’s jobs and today’s jobs. And representing a district that is termed in the Almanac for American Politics as “the most blue-collar district in America,” we certainly are going through change. And I wanted to ask you, what would you propose for a district like mine? What can I go home and tell my people that we should be doing?
Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez: Well I recall we talked about this when we traveled together to North Carolina and at that time interestingly you were talking about a [Higher Education Coordinating] Council, which I believe is the sort of initiative that you need throughout the country but especially in communities as you say where change is happening, because what ultimately will help our people is to upgrade their skills, adjust their skills, but enable them to move forward with the economy and enable them to move to jobs of higher paying wage – but ensure that we give them the ability to constantly be training and retraining. So I would just say that your foresight on that – your vision on that – is absolutely right to the extent that we can help to execute that vision. That should help, because that’s what we’ve seen in communities that have made a transition. It has been about getting the right programs…
Chairman Tom Davis (R-VA): Mr. Secretary could you pull that microphone a little closer, just so we can hear? Thank you.
Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez: Yes sir. Getting the right programs in community colleges that are tied to the jobs that are available and that’s the sort of execution that needs to take place locally. On the – on textiles, as you know, we just signed an agreement with China for three years. Hopefully that will give, and it’s intended to give, both retailers and manufacturers transparency and predictability as to what’s going to happen over the next three years to enable them to do what needs to be done to become more competitive. So, I hope that has been helpful but I would urge you to stay on this coordinating council and I think it’s the right focus.
Congressman McHenry: I appreciate that, and thank you. I did enjoy speaking with you. We had about two or three hours that day to talk on that trip and I appreciated that opportunity. Is there any expertise in the Department of Commerce you could point to that folks – my folks at home could reach out and get help with?
Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez: I would, depending on the specific area, but I would point to the ITA area where we do have an office for textiles – specifically focused on textiles. And I would also lead you toward Economic Development Administration, E.D.A., because their role is about economic development and it’s about helping communities create jobs, helping communities become more attractive to private sector investment. So I would start there and I think those two areas could be very helpful.
Congressman McHenry: Well, my predecessor had the foresight to actually work with the Department of Commerce to get a regional economic development survey done to point us in the right direction. And so…
Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez: Right.
Congressman McHenry: …We’re very much appreciative to an initiative we call Future Forward, for my region. A final question for you, where do we need to go in terms of changing the tax-code to be competitive internationally, around the world? There are a number of different initiatives – a previous statement pointed to the fact that we are held back by regulation and taxation in this country and lawsuits that actually hampers our ability to sell products around the world, because of the added expense and cost of that.
Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez: I would say two things there. One is the, just the recognition that, the tax-cuts that Congress and the President enacted have worked and there’s no question that the basic principle of putting more money in the hands of business and putting more money in the hands of consumers and that they will be better than a centralized body is working. The challenge now is to make those tax-cuts permanent and to recognize that if we don’t make them permanent then we’re raising taxes. Because that will also incentivize investors to bring more capital to the country. And then on the innovation front we have the R&D tax credit. We believe there’s work that can be done there to simplify it. It is a little bit complex, it is -- it’s subject to some interpretations, and we believe we can make it more effective so that it yields more innovation. Those are two things I would do to work on tax policy.
Congressman McHenry: Well, thank you, Mr. Secretary, and thank you, Mr. Chairman.
