Sen. Sherrod Brown Letter to the Editor: Let’s make 2012 the Year of Manufacturing
Putnam Sentinel — You may not know Elizabeth Williams personally, but you know someone like her.
Elizabeth Williams is a single mother of two living in North Jackson who has worked at General Motors’ Lordstown plant for 17 years. One of her sons, Zachary, dreams of becoming a state highway patrolman. Though he’s only in high school, he works as a part-time dispatcher for the Columbiana Police Department after school. Her other son, Bryan, is an iron worker who’s stayed in the Mahoning Valley and is working on building V&M Star Steel’s new $650 million expansion in Youngstown.
Every year, Senators and members of Congress are allotted one guest ticket for the State of the Union address. Last week, Elizabeth Williams attended President Obama’s address as my guest-because she and her family symbolize exactly how important manufacturing is to Ohio and to our nation.
The most recent jobs report noted 23,000 manufacturing jobs were added in December, affirming that manufacturing is critical to an economic recovery. Yet as we’ve seen with the auto rescue, there is a role for government to work alongside the private sector in supporting manufacturing.
