Is Manufacturing Falling Off the Radar?

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Pella, Iowa -
JUST outside this prairie town, seven vast buildings, each painted brick red, are lined up along a highway bordered by grain fields. These single-story structures have no smokestacks or any other indication that they are, in fact, very busy factories.

Three shifts of workers produce machines that bale hay, dig trenches, reduce tree branches to wood chips, grind stumps into sawdust, and drill tunnels to run electric wires and pipes underground. Most were the creations of Gary Vermeer, a farmer, tinkerer and inventor who died two years ago, at the age of 91.

The company he founded bears his name, but for all its American roots, the Vermeer Corporation put its newest factory — and the wealth that goes with it — not here but in the capital of China. And Mr. Vermeer’s daughter, Mary Vermeer Andringa, the chief executive, presides over a manufacturing operation that relies increasingly on government support.

As President Obama urges Congress to enact a package of tax cuts and new government spending intended to revive growth and create jobs, one crucial corner of the American economy — manufacturing — has largely fallen off Washington’s radar screen.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/11/business/is-manufacturing-falling-off-the-us-radar-screen.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=tha25