Unleashing America’s Economic Potential

WASHINGTON—Chairman Erik Paulsen, R-Minn., presided over the Joint Economic Committee’s hearing, “Unleashing America’s Economic Potential,” on Wednesday. The hearing was an opportunity for the Committee to hear from economic experts about how recent reform efforts by Congress and the Administration have begun to show results.

In his opening statement, Chairman Paulsen stated his belief that the American economy is growing thanks to the hardworking Americans who are feeling relief thanks to tax reform and regulatory reform:

We all know America is an economic powerhouse. We are blessed with vast and bountiful land, massive energy resources, and most importantly, the American people. Our dreams, as a nation, don’t rely on government fiat or foreign influence, but on the resourcefulness, the innovativeness, and the hard work of everyday Americans.

The question is: Will we, elected officials of the U.S. government, allow them to work towards their dreams and fully contribute to our nation’s prosperity?

Douglas Holtz Eakin of American Action Forum continued this theme:

Congress and the current administration must break from the economic policies of the past decade. “Economic growth policy” is more a philosophy than a piece of legislation. It is a commitment at every juncture in the policy process to evaluate tradeoffs between social goals, environmental goals, special interest goals, and economic growth – and then to err on the side of growth.

Chad Moutray of the National Association of Manufacturers also noted that getting Washington out of the way has made a profound impact on manufacturing.

What’s behind those historic levels of manufacturer optimism? Primarily, pro-growth policies emanating from Washington—policies that would allow manufacturers to better compete in the global marketplace: smarter regulatory policies, for one, and the expectation that Washington would succeed in enacting historic tax reform.

Well, Congress did succeed in passing a historic package of tax reforms, which the president signed into law. We’ve seen the positive effects of this law throughout the economy already. And, while I cannot get into specifics right now, the NAM will release an update to its quarterly survey shortly, and from what we’ve seen already, it is safe to say that manufacturers remained very upbeat in the first quarter.

Rick Hampton, who is the Chairman of a family-owned small business in Rogers, Minnesota, Circuit Interruption Technologies, testified:

While companies like [mine] continue to face a host of regulatory and other challenges, tax reform has been and will continue to be a tremendous help to our business and employees. We are in the process of developing a longer-term approach to expanding our business model from private-label manufacturing outside the United States to re-shoring manufacturing in America. In conjunction with this approach CIT will be hiring added technical staff to help explore this process. We’ll hire additional staff to expand new products, some of which will meet the demand for relays to support electric automobile charging stations and specialty relays used to reduce energy used for office lighting. CIT will take the necessary steps to position itself to meet the growing desire by our customers for U.S.-made quality and improved logistics that ultimately result from domestic US manufacturing.

The Joint Economic Committee will continue to explore ways to empower more Americans to prosper without Washington getting in the way.

Click here to learn more about this week's hearing.

 

###