Biden Has Prediction for ISU Students

Vice President Joe Biden told a crowd of 700 people on campus today that the industry that builds the base of the middle class is coming back.

Manufacturers are not only building new factories in the United States, they are picking up factory floors outsourced to Mexico and China and bringing them home, he said.

“I'm here to tell you the generation of students in this university are not going to hear the word outsourcing anymore,” Biden said.

Rather the word "insourcing" would become more common, he said.

Biden spent more than three hours at the university, first touring a lab with engineering students in Howe Hall before coming out and making an optimistic speech. He also took a few questions from students before meeting with the press.

The audience quietly listened to Biden's speech but gave him a standing ovation as he took the stage and again when he left.  

Throughout Biden's speech, he touted American workers. He said factories are returning because workers here are more efficient and innovative, Biden said.

Americans are not afraid to challenge and ask questions as people are in other countries, he said.

“Here at ISU we understand change only comes from challenging orthodoxy and challenging the established norm. … That's the environment that the next generation of good ideas will come from,” Biden said.

Before students left, Biden told students to believe in America.

"Believe man, not in Barack Obama or Joe Biden, not in the current administration believe in this country we are so poised," Biden said.

Students leaving Howe Hall Thursday said that they found Biden's speech uplifting.

“It was a very positive speech,” said Stephanie Lascelles, a junior in child and family services.

Manufacturing remains a top industry in the U.S. and Iowa.

Iowa’s manufacturing sector had 207,509 jobs in 2010, accounting for 10.6 percent of the state’s total 1,951,354 jobs. However, the number of people employed in the manufacturing in Iowa has declined following a national trend, according to a Manufacturing in Iowa report by Ron Cox, Director of Center for Industrial Research and Service of ISU Extension and Outreach.

Iowa lost 48,000 manufacturing jobs from 2000 to 2010.

“Between 1990 and 2010, the sector's share of total jobs fell from 13.1 to 7.0 percent nationally and from 13.7 to 10.6 percent in Iowa,” according to Cox's report.

President Barack Obama offered a number of ways to encourage the return of businesses in the state of the union address including:

• Eliminating tax deductions to companies that outsource jobs and cover moving expenses for companies that decide to bring jobs back.
• Taxing all multinational companies with a basic minimum tax and then using those revenues to reduce taxes for companies that operate in America.
• Offering American manufacturers bigger tax cuts and doubling tax deductions for high-tech manufacturers that make products in America.