Continuing with his “Make it in America” pitch, Congressman Steny Hoyer (D: MD-5th) hosted a discussion at the Clarion Inn in Waldorf with his Make it in America Advisory Committee, which comprised of local manufacturers, business leaders, labor organizations, education officials, economic development agencies and others, on Tuesday afternoon.

“Today, I hosted a very productive meeting with the Fifth District Make It In America Advisory Committee to discuss how we can work together to promote job creation, grow the economy, and strengthen the manufacturing sector,” Hoyer said. “Manufacturing continues to be a bright spot in our economic recovery and the Make it in America plan aims to build on that momentum by providing an encouraging environment for manufacturers to innovate, grow, keep and create good jobs here in Maryland and throughout the nation. I thank the Advisory Committee for joining me today, and look forward to their continued guidance as we move forward with this plan to help put more Americans back to work and ensure more Maryland families and businesses can make it in America.”

Hoyer started the discussion with a showing of a short video, introduced last fall during a town hall meeting in Waldorf.

The agenda focuses on bringing manufacturing jobs back to America with incentives, education, tax cuts and by training a new labored skill force.

“We’re losing the middle class,” Hoyer said.  “If we lose the middle class, we lose America.”

“We decided to have a focus on procurement,” MCB Lighting and Electrical President and CEO Charles Baker said.  “We came up with a theme of create jobs and cost savings.  Because of procurement policies, they continue to buy Chinese gloves.

“If we want to create jobs, we have to start with enforcement of federal laws, accountability and compliance.  If we had enforcement of non-compliance, we could create a half million jobs just through compliance.  We have to get away from things that don’t make sense and start doing things that are smart to bring jobs back to America.  Tax cuts don’t bring jobs back.  I’ll pay a higher tax if I make money.”

“There’s a stigma associated with manufacturing,” Garrick Davis from the Center of Labor and Community Research said.  “We have to address the lack of appeal when it comes to manufacturing.”

“We need to get young people excited about manufacturing,” Hoyer said.  “People who don’t go to college, we are losing them.  We’re in the process of trying to repair a lot of broken men and women in America.  We need people.  We need to take a lot of these young kids who think they’ll be a failure if they don’t go to college. We can’t afford to lose any young minds.

“The largest middle class in the world is India.  China has an extraordinary deficit.  Nobody can compete with America if America decides to compete.”