A panel that has been searching for ways to advance manufacturing in Pennsylvania unveiled its recommendations recently.
The blueprint advanced by the Governor's Manufacturing Advisory Council, financed without taxpayer money by the Team Pennsylvania Foundation, was hardly surprising.
The council called for tax cuts, more public-private partnerships with schools and policies that recognize natural gas production as an opportunity for developing new markets.
While these steps are often decried as evil on campaign stops by some, they represent an oft-repeated mantra that is a proven strategy for improving economies. In Pennsylvania's case, the natural gas boom has been largely responsible for an increase in manufacturing jobs in the state the past two years.
Manufacturers employ 574,000 people in Pennsylvania, 10 percent of the state's workforce, with 12,000 new manufacturing jobs in 2011 alone.
These increases are the largest since 1991, but the state still has an unfavorable business tax portfolio and needs to more aggressively develop strategies that encourage students to pursue manufacturing careers.
What we don't need is a state or federal government that tries to convince people that government is the ultimate creator of jobs. Those jobs are created at a great cost to taxpayers.
Only the private sector can create jobs that generate economy at little or no cost to taxpayers. That's always been the case, though some people want to convince us otherwise.
