Sen. Brown touts manufacturing as key to recovery
Akron Beacon Journal – U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown says Ohio still knows how to make stuff — big stuff.
To keep making that stuff, and to retain and create jobs, the nation needs to find a way to keep its manufacturing base viable and growing, Brown said Monday before a full audience at the monthly Akron Roundtable luncheon program at Quaker Station in downtown Akron.
Brown defended the federal government's fiscal actions during the Great Recession, saying it was necessary to borrow nearly $1.5 trillion to rescue and stimulate the economy and prevent a global collapse. The efforts also helped save major manufacturers such as General Motors and Chrysler, he said.
Ohio is the third-biggest manufacturing state in the nation, behind Texas and California — states with populations two and three times larger than Ohio's, said Brown, a Democrat.
''We're a state that knows how to make big things,'' Brown said. ''We're a state that knows how to manufacture and create a middle class and sustain a standard of living.''
