Input Stories

America’s story is a manufacturing story, and Zoeller has played an important role over the years. Recently, the administration and Congress have made great strides in reducing the cost of doing business in the United States, and they can take several steps now to “fine tune” that success, the CEO of Zoeller Pump Company told the House this week.

What’s going on: “[T]his Congress preserved the 21% corporate tax rate and provided immediate expensing for R&D activities,” Bill Zoeller, head of the 87-year-old, Louisville, Kentucky–based water pump manufacturer, told the Senate Small Business and Entrepreneurship Committee Wednesday.

• “These actions prevented tax increases and paved the way for our continued expansion.”
• Zoeller Pump Company has also benefited from the administration’s efforts to reduce federal regulations and their costs.
• Now it’s time to build on those victories for manufacturers, Zoeller said.

What should be done: There are five things Congress and the administration can do, Zoeller told the committee at “America 250: Industrialization and the Rise of Small Manufacturers,” a hearing on America’s manufacturing history and future thinking about reducing cost pressures and promoting the competitiveness of smaller U.S. manufacturers.

• Continue to “rebalance and right-size the burden of federal regulations on our industry”;
• Reauthorize the infrastructure bill, which expires in September, so that manufacturers have “robust highways, bridges, ports and waterways to make and move products across the country”;
• Pass permitting reform and continue efforts to improve the federal permitting process;
• Promote “strategic trade policies that ensure manufacturers have easy and reliable access to the inputs and machinery we need to make things in America”; and
• Enact policies to upskill and train people for the modern manufacturing workforce to help fill the industry’s 400,000 open jobs.

A recipe for manufacturing greatness: “The 2025 tax bill is the foundation, and if backed by the right policies, manufacturers like Zoeller will be ready and proud to drive the next 250 years of American manufacturing greatness.”