In the past decade or more, the United States has produced more financial engineers than industrial engineers, and our nation's lack of a coherent manufacturing strategy is threatening our ability to compete. That was the subject of a Banking Committee meeting today where Senator Warner and others talked about the challenges and opportunities facing American manufacturers.

"Unlike wealth created by the click of a mouse, wealth created by expanded production requires an expanded workforce," said subcommittee chairman Sen. Sherrod Brown of Ohio.

Absent this national manufacturing strategy, Brown said, our country has consistently lost traditional manufacturing jobs, and that has harmed the economies of America's older cities and rural regions.

Senator Warner spoke about the lack of coordination, and the uneven results among at least 17 different federal workforce training programs.

"Our workforce training system has serious structural problems and it isn’t equipped to deal with these challenges. Every community college has its own certification programs, and there are no real standards to help us determine which training programs are valuable and which aren’t working," Senator Warner said.

Senator Warner also spoke about the importance of doing more to ensure that small business and manufacturers get access to needed credit during this slow economic recovery, including elements he has worked on and which are included in the small business legislation currently pending in the Senate. He also promoted legislation he has introduced that would provide additional resources for states to recruit overseas jobs back to the U.S.