Whip Hoyer on CNBC Discussing the Economy, and Democrats' Make It In America Agenda

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house minority whip steny Hoyer set to roll out his agenda this afternoon. i think if you're a leader once, dwroint all of a sudden -- i mean you're still leading. i can't call you whip, can i? so i'm going to go with leader. can i still do that or do you want steny?

steny works. i've had that a lot longer than the others. leader works. whip, whatever.

it was great seeing you down there.

that was a fun evening.

he was on, wasn't he?

it was good it.

was the most widely watched thing ever on c-span. how about now that we know what was in the back of his mind.

there you go.

because the weather delayed that for the bin laden operation for a while. all right. so what's the idea now of specificing manufacturing jobs we're talking about but jobs in general? we've got a report coming out friday. i don't know what that's going to be like.

hopefully that will be positive. clearly the last election was focuseden two things. jobs and deficits. people wanted to get the fiscal house in order of their country. but they knew that they needed to create jobs. very frankly we've been here for four months without jobs legislation being offered on the floor of the house of representatives. what we're rolling out today as we auk talk about creating job is a focus on job creators. we're focusing on also the psychology that we can make it in america. we e can succeed. it's great country but it can be an even greater country. also focus on making it a greater america. manufacture in america. grow it here. sell it here and around the world. there's no reason why the most productive effective workers in the world can't compete with anybody in the world if they're given the tools. if they have a tax policy, regulatory policy that encourages the growth of manufactures, growth of businesses. the reason you focus on manufacturing, of course, is because americans believe correctly that if america is manufacturing goods and selling them abroad, we'll continue to be a very successful country and create the kinds of jobs that are good paying jobs with good benefits. we know that manufacturing, according to our own statistic but also the national association of manufacturers, that when you create a job in manufacturing, it has a multiplier effect in the job market generally.

you know, leader, we know the ideological divide. there are some who think the government is trying create jobs and others think that's taking money from somewhere. that takes money away from the people that are going to be creating the jobs since you don't want the government sector of jobs. you want private sector jobs. that's the old votto. how can you do it without adding to the deficit and taking away from the job creators themselves. how do you induce the private companies to keep manufacturing jobs here?

well, as the president mentioned in the state of the union. you have to look at tax policy, regulatory policy. the president is looking at both. we need to look at fiscal policy. we need to return, frankly, to the era of the 1990 when we brought deficits down and created four years of surplus under bill clinton. that created an environmental in which investors believed their capital would not be at risk by investing it. but there's also a partnership, joe, between government and the private sector. there has to be a partnership in terms of investing in education, investing in infrastructure in our country to create the environment, the context in which enterprise, innovators, developers can, in fact, be successful, and that's what we want to focus on in the "make it in america" agenda. we want to say to the manufacturing community, the business community, look, we need to be in partnership to grow our economy. we don't want to get in your way, but we do want to make sure that you have a context, an environment that makes you competitive globally. i think that's the key. that's what make it in america is going to focus on. it's going to focus on creating jobs but also focusing on job creators. if you're going to be pro jobs you have to be pro creators of jobs.

we've got ed lazear. i'm sure you know him.


he's got some ideas and comments.


certainly it was heartening to hear you talk about reduction of taxes and regulation. i think those are the key things in terms of focusing on long-term growth and i'm happy to hear you focusing on those. a couple of questions for you, leader. one, why the focus on manufacturing? i mean obviously manufacturing is extremely important and we certainly applaud those efforts, but we know 80% or so of the economy is in services. most of the people are in service jobs. do you think that focusing on manufacturing will be neglecting services and maybe essentially working on the tail rather than the dog?

ed, i don't think it's one or the other very frankly. the reason we're focused on manufacturing but we're also focused on small businesses, and, yes, on services. the export of services is a positive thing as well as the export of goods. goods and services both are in the marketplace, things that can grow your economy. so i agree with your observation. but what we find is the manufacturing community has retreated over the last 20 years, and with it our ability to produce goods and services, frankly, but particularly goods to sell them in the international global marketplace has been a rodent. the good news is over the last 15 months we've seen the manufacturing community grow, but still at a percentage far less than we were 20 years ago. manufacturing jobs have a particularly positive effect on our economy. and as well, on the kinds of jobs that are created in the manufacturing community. i've talked to the national association of manufacturers, john eng gler who heads up the business roundtable, john at the chamber of commerce and rick. one thing that we find in this "make it in america" agenda that i think all americans ought to be pleased with, that you can talk about "make it in america" at any congressional district in america, republican, democrat, liberal, when you talking making it in america, creating jobs, people shake their heads and yell that's what we ought to be doing. that's a nonideological, nondivisive, brings people together, focuses on what people want to see and that is the creation of jobs and conomic opportunity.

we look to canada. they're going to 16.5% on the business taxes. i know people don't think that corporations really pay 35% but there's a reason they don't, and that's because a lot of the manufacturing jobs end up overseas because they're able do that there. it just worries me and it must worry you that between now and 2012 we're probably not going to get to tackling that which might be the most important thing we can do to bring jobs back here

i think that's right.

that's me again. i sound like a famous economist.

i got you.

because of my background and economist. no, that probably did sound like ed, but --

let me tell you. the problem we're having when you talk about canada or other nations in europe or asia in terms of their tax policy, one of the problems is we have trouble comparing apples to apples. we had an article yesterday which pointed out fewer countries have what we have, therefore there's a great disparity in the tax burdens paid by one manufacturing enterprise versus another manufacturing enterprise, one sector of the economy, versus another sector of the economy. we've got to have very significant tax reform which makes our tax system simpler, in my view, reduce preference items and bring a level playing field and a competitive playing field with the international community. clearly if we're going to encourage people to keep jobs here, they have to make a profit doing so. that's the incentive for staying here. we have to make sure we create an vurnlt that allows for that to happen. i talked to the association of manufacturing there. there are people bringing jobs back to america. why are they doing so? because they found that we're more productive here, more efficient, and they can make a profit, notwithstanding salary. they can make a profit. when you look at for instance, bmw, a german company, manufacturing suvs here in south carolina. where are they selling them? back in germany. if they can do it, we can do it. we are doing it. allan mao malawi is bringing them back. he can do so in a good way. make it in america.

appreciate it. see you soon.

you bet.