[House Hearing, 117 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]



 
                   BUILDING BACK BETTER: INVESTING IN
                 IMPROVING SCHOOLS, CREATING JOBS, AND
                 STRENGTHENING FAMILIES AND OUR ECONOMY

=======================================================================

                                HEARING

                               before the

                    COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION AND LABOR
                     U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                    ONE HUNDRED SEVENTEENTH CONGRESS

                             FIRST SESSION

                               __________

             HEARING HELD IN WASHINGTON, DC, APRIL 28, 2021

                               __________

                            Serial No. 117-9

                               __________

      Printed for the use of the Committee on Education and Labor
      
      
      
      
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT] 
                                     


                                     

          Available via: edlabor.house.gov or www.govinfo.gov

                               __________
                               
                U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE 
44-333 PDF               WASHINGTON : 2022                              
                               
                               
                               
                               
                               

                    COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION AND LABOR

             ROBERT C. ``BOBBY'' SCOTT, Virginia, Chairman

RAUL M. GRIJALVA, Arizona            VIRGINIA FOXX, North Carolina,
JOE COURTNEY, Connecticut              Ranking Member
GREGORIO KILILI CAMACHO SABLAN,      JOE WILSON, South Carolina
  Northern Mariana Islands           GLENN THOMPSON, Pennsylvania
FREDERICA S. WILSON, Florida         TIM WALBERG, Michigan
SUZANNE BONAMICI, Oregon             GLENN GROTHMAN, Wisconsin
MARK TAKANO, California              ELISE M. STEFANIK, New York
ALMA S. ADAMS, North Carolina        RICK W. ALLEN, Georgia
MARK De SAULNIER, California         JIM BANKS, Indiana
DONALD NORCROSS, New Jersey          JAMES COMER, Kentucky
PRAMILA JAYAPAL, Washington          RUSS FULCHER, Idaho
JOSEPH D. MORELLE, New York          FRED KELLER, Pennsylvania
SUSAN WILD, Pennsylvania             GREGORY F. MURPHY, North Carolina
LUCY Mc BATH, Georgia                MARIANNETTE MILLER-MEEKS, Iowa
JAHANA HAYES, Connecticut            BURGESS OWENS, Utah
ANDY LEVIN, Michigan                 BOB GOOD, Virginia
ILHAN OMAR, Minnesota                LISA C. Mc CLAIN, Michigan
HALEY M. STEVENS, Michigan           DIANA HARSHBARGER, Tennessee
TERESA LEGER FERNANDEZ, New Mexico   MARY E. MILLER, Illinois
MONDAIRE JONES, New York             VICTORIA SPARTZ, Indiana
KATHY E. MANNING, North Carolina     SCOTT FITZGERALD, Wisconsin
FRANK J. MRVAN, Indiana              MADISON CAWTHORN, North Carolina
JAMAAL BOWMAN, New York, Vice-Chair  MICHELLE STEEL, California
MARK POCAN, Wisconsin                JULIA LETLOW, Louisiana
JOAQUIN CASTRO, Texas                Vacancy
MIKIE SHERRILL, New Jersey
JOHN A. YARMUTH, Kentucky
ADRIANO ESPAILLAT, New York
KWEISI MFUME, Maryland

                   Veronique Pluviose, Staff Director
                  Cyrus Artz, Minority Staff Director
                                 ------    
                                 
                            C O N T E N T S

                              ----------                              
                                                                   Page

Hearing held on April 28, 2021...................................     1

Statement of Members:
    Scott, Hon. Robert C. ``Bobby'', Chairman, Committee on 
      Education and Labor........................................     1
        Prepared statement of....................................     4
    Foxx, Hon. Virginia, Ranking Member, Committee on Education 
      and Labor..................................................     6
        Prepared statement of....................................     7

Statement of Witnesses:
    Filardo, Mary W., Founder and Executive Director, 21st 
      Century School Fund........................................    61
        Prepared statement of....................................    64
    Lanter, Bob, Executive Director, California Workforce 
      Association................................................    40
        Prepared statement of....................................    42
    McCluskey, Neal, Ph.D., Director, Center for Educational 
      Freedom, Cato Institute....................................    17
        Prepared statement of....................................    20
    Malik, Rasheed, MPP, Senior Policy Analyst, Early Childhood 
      Policy Center for American Progress........................    10
        Prepared statement of....................................    12
    Mitsui, Mark, President, Portland Community College..........    31
        Prepared statement of....................................    33
    Riedl, Brian, Senior Fellow in Budget, Tax, and Economics, 
      The 
      Manhattan Institute........................................    50
        Prepared statement of....................................    52

Additional Submissions:
    Chairman Scott:
        Report, ``State of Our Schools 2016: America's K-12 
          Facilities''...........................................   130
        BlueGreen Alliance letter dated April 28, 2021...........   176
        Paper from Child Development, ``Impacts of a 
          Prekindergarten Program on Children's Mathematics, 
          Language, Literacy, Executive Function, and Emotional 
          Skill'', Nov-Dec 2013..................................   178
        Executive Summary, ``Investing in Our Future: The 
          Evidence Base on Preschool Education'', Society for 
          Research in Child Development..........................   197
        Report, ``A public investment agenda that delivers the 
          goods for American workers needs to be long-lived, 
          broad, and subject to democratic oversight'', Economic 
          Policy Institute.......................................   201
        Report, ``Condition of America's Public School 
          Facilities: 2012-13'', National Center for Education 
          Statistics, March 2014.................................   219
        Research Brief, ``Untangling the Evidence on Preschool 
          Effectiveness: Insights for Policymakers'', Learning 
          Policy Institute, January 2019.........................   259
        Rebuild America's Schools letter dated April 28, 2021....   271
        American Federation of Teachers letter dated April 28, 
          2021...................................................   272
        Link: GAO Report 20-494 dated June 4, 2020, ``K-12 
          EDUCATION--School Districts FrequentlyIdentified 
          Multiple Building Systems Needing Updates or 
          Replacement''..........................................   273
    Wilson, Hon. Frederica S., a Representative in Congress from 
      the State of Florida:
        Article from Communities In Schools, ``3 Million Kids 
          Missing From School Because of COVID-19 Is a 
          Travesty'', March 5, 2021..............................   274
        Article from The 74, ``Report Estimates 1 to 3 Million 
          Students Missing From School Since March, But Data on 
          Disrupted Learning is `At Best a Moving Target''' 
          October 21, 2020.......................................   277
        Article from The Washington Post, ``Unprecedented numbers 
          of students have disappeared during the pandemic. 
          Schools are working harder than ever to find them.'' 
          February 25, 2021......................................   280
    Grothman, Hon. Glenn, a Representnative in Congress from the 
      State of Wisconsin:
        ``The Drawbacks of Universal Pre-K: A Review of the 
          Evidence''.............................................   286
    Wild, Hon. Susan, a Representative in Congress from the State 
      of 
      Pennsylvania:
        Prepared statement from SMART and NEMIC..................   300
    Questions submitted for the record by:
        Fulcher, Hon. Russ, a Representative in Congress from the 
          State of Idaho 



    Responses to questions submitted for the record by:
        Mr. McClusky.............................................   304
        Mr. Reidl................................................   309


                   BUILDING BACK BETTER: INVESTING IN

                 IMPROVING SCHOOLS, CREATING JOBS, AND

                 STRENGTHENING FAMILIES AND OUR ECONOMY

                              ----------                              


                       Wednesday, April 28, 2021

                  House of Representatives,
                          Committee on Education and Labor,
                                                    Washington, DC.
    The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 12:12 p.m., via 
Zoom, Hon. Robert C. ``Bobby'' Scott (Chairman of the 
Committee) presiding.
    Present: Representatives Scott, Courtney, Sablan, Wilson of 
Florida, Bonamici, Takano, Adams, DeSaulnier, Norcross, 
Jayapal, Wild, McBath, Hayes, Levin, Stevens, Leger Fernandez, 
Jones, Manning, Mrvan, Bowman, Pocan, Sherrill, Yarmuth, 
Espaillat, Mfume, Foxx, Grothman, Allen, Fulcher, Miller-Meeks, 
Owens, Good, Harshbarger, Miller, Spartz, Fitzgerald, Cawthorn, 
Steel, and Letlow.
    Staff present: Melissa Bellin, Professional Staff; Katie 
Berger, Professional Staff; Jessica Bowen, Professional Staff; 
Ilana Brunner, General Counsel; David Dailey, Counsel to the 
Chairman; Paula Daneri, Professional Staff; Rashage Green, 
Director of Education Policy; Christian Haines, General 
Counsel; Joe Herrbach, Professional Staff; Eli Hovland, Policy 
Associate; Ariel Jones, Policy Associate; Andre Lindsay, Policy 
Associate; Katie McClelland, Professional Staff; Richard 
Miller, Director of Labor Policy; Kota Mizutani, Staff Writer; 
Max Moore, Staff Assistant; Kayla Pennebecker, Staff Assistant; 
Veronique Pluviose, Staff Director; Lakeisha Steele, Senior 
Education Policy Advisor; Banyon Vassar, Deputy Director of 
Information Technology; Claire Viall, Professional Staff; 
Joshua Weisz, Communications Director; Cyrus Artz, Minority 
Staff Director; Kelsey Avino, Minority Professional Staff 
Member; Courtney Butcher, Minority Director of Member Services 
and Coalitions; Rob Green, Minority Director of Workforce 
Policy; Amy Raaf Jones, Minority Director of Education and 
Human Resources Policy; Hannah Matesic, Minority Director of 
Operations; Audra McGeorge, Minority Communications Director; 
Carlton Norwood, Minority Press Secretary; Chance Russell, 
Minority Legislative Assistant; Mandy Schaumburg, Minority 
Chief Counsel and Deputy Director of Education Policy; Brad 
Thomas, Minority Senior Education Policy Advisor.
    Chairman Scott. The Committee on Education and Labor will 
come to order and welcome everyone. I apologize for the delay, 
but the Committee is hearing testimony today on Building Back 
Better: Investing in Improving Schools, Creating Jobs and 
Strengthening Families and our Economy.
    This is an entirely remote hearing. All microphones should 
be kept muted as a general rule to avoid unnecessary background 
noise. Members and witnesses will be responsible for unmuting 
themselves when they are recognized to speak, or when they seek 
recognition.
    I will also ask Members to be please identify themselves 
before they speak. Members should keep their cameras on while 
in the proceeding. Members shall be considered present in the 
proceeding when they are visible on camera, and they shall be 
considered not present when they are not visible on camera.
    The only exception to this is if they are experiencing 
technical difficulties and they should inform the Committee 
staff of such difficulties. If any Member experiences technical 
difficulties during the hearing he should stay connected on the 
platform, be sure you are muted, and use your phone immediately 
to call the Committee's IT director whose number was provided 
in advance.
    Should the chair experience any technical difficulty, or 
need to step away from the floor, another majority Member will 
be hereby will be authorized to assume the gavel in the Chair's 
absence.
    This is an entirely remote meeting. And as such the 
Committee's hearing room is officially closed. Members who 
choose to sit with their individual devices in the hearing room 
must wear headphones to avoid feedback, echoes and distortion 
resulting from more than one person on the software platform 
sitting in the same room.
    Members are also expected to adhere to social distancing, 
and safe healthcare guidelines including the use of masks, hand 
sanitizer and wiping down their areas, both before and after 
their presence in the hearing room. In order to ensure that the 
Committee's five-minute rule is adhered to, staff will be 
keeping track of time using the Committee's field timer.
    The field timer will appear in its own thumbnail picture on 
screen and will be named 001_timer. There will be no one minute 
remaining warning. The field timer will sound its audio alarm 
when the time is up. Members and witnesses are asked to wrap up 
promptly when their time has expired.
    While a roll call is not necessary to establish a quorum in 
official proceedings conducted remotely or with remote 
participation,--I've been advised that the livestream is 
experiencing another problem and I've been asked to pause very 
briefly.
    We about to restart, five, four, three, two, one. In order 
to ensure the Committee's five-minute rule is adhered to staff 
will be keeping track of time using the Committee's field 
timer. The field timer will appear in its own thumbnail picture 
and be named 001_timer. There will be no one minute remaining 
warning. The field timer will sound its alarm when the time is 
up. Members and witnesses are asked to wrap up promptly when 
their time has expired.
    While a roll call is not necessary, in light of the delay 
we'll skip the roll call and get to opening statements.
    Pursuant to Committee Rule 8(c), opening statements are 
limited to the Chair and the Ranking Members. This allows us to 
hear from our witnesses sooner and provides all Members with 
adequate time to ask questions.
    I recognize myself now for the purpose of making an opening 
statement.
    Today we are gathered to discuss how substantial 
investments in the infrastructure of our schools, workforce and 
communities will overcome the COVID-19 pandemic and build back 
a better economy for all Americans.
    We're finally starting to defeat this deadly pandemic. 
Roughly 3 million people are getting vaccinated every day, and 
most people can now get a vaccine in less than 24 hours. The 
economy created more than 900,000 jobs in March. 95 percent of 
schools are open either full-time for either full-time, in-
person instruction or a hybrid of in-person and remote 
schooling.
    And despite the many reasons for optimism about America's 
future, we cannot ignore the ongoing risks that this pandemic 
is posing for students and workers. Millions of displaced 
workers remain unemployed without skills needed to find good 
paying jobs. Schools are unable to ensure the safety of 
students and staff due to hazardous, outdated facilities.
    Families are finding it even more difficult to find safe 
and affordable childcare, and the rising costs of higher 
education continues to restrict opportunities for competent 
students. These challenges have hit some communities harder 
than others. This is particularly true for low-income 
individuals and people of color who entered the pandemic with 
inadequate access to quality childcare, education, healthcare, 
and workplace protections.
    Over the last year the Committee has worked to protect the 
lives and livelihood of our constituents, but we cannot be 
satisfied with the return to pre-pandemic status quo. We have 
the responsibility to build back an even better economy.
    Last month President Biden unveiled the American Jobs Plan 
which proposes a range of investments to improve the 
infrastructure of our Nation's childcare centers, schools, and 
workforce. This plan invests in our chronically underfunded 
public workforce systems by providing 100 billion dollars for 
apprenticeships, pre-apprenticeships, sector-based training and 
programs to help displaced workers build the skills for new 
careers.
    And it ensures a more equitable recovery for workers with 
barriers to employment by expanding re-entry programs and 
subsidizing employment especially for disconnected youth. This 
proposal reflects key elements of the Relaunching America's 
Workforce Act which would invest 15 billion dollars to help 
workers quickly re-enter the workforce, as well as the National 
Apprenticeship Act of 2021 which the House passed earlier this 
year.
    The President's proposals ensures that school facilities 
are safe for students and staff, and investing 100 billion 
dollars to repair outdated and hazardous infrastructure at 
high-need schools. This reflects the Reopen and Rebuild 
America's Schools Act, which would provide 130 billion dollars 
to address the deteriorating conditions in our Nation's schools 
and create more than 2 million jobs.
    In my district some school staff are concerned about 
returning to campus, not just because of COVID-19, but also 
because some school buildings have had mold and other serious 
health hazards since even before the pandemic.
    We must invest in school infrastructure that the students 
and school staff can learn and work safely. The President is 
also proposing to expand access to safe and affordable child 
care. Operating child care facilities and increasing our 
Nation's child care capacity.
    Moreover, we expect the President to soon propose a robust 
plan that would lower the cost of child care for families. Even 
before the pandemic too many families could not afford 
childcare, and more than half of all families did not even have 
access to quality childcare.
    Last week Congressman Sablan joined Senator Murray and me 
in reintroducing the Child Care for Working Families Act which 
would increase childcare capacity, support childcare workers, 
and ensure that all working families can afford quality care.
    Finally, the President is seeking to boost our Nation's 
community colleges which play a critical role in helping 
underserved students access job training and higher education. 
Unfortunately, these institutions face severe enrollment 
declines and funding cuts. In response the President's proposal 
to modernize this community college infrastructure will ensure 
that they have the capacity and resources needed to serve 
students and job seekers.
    We further expect the President to release a proposal to 
make community college tuition free and incentive State 
reinvestment in higher education. This mirrors the America's 
College Promise Act Which Congressman Levin, and I introduced 
this week. Today my republican colleagues may argue that these 
proposals are unnecessary, or unrelated to infrastructure, or 
maybe too expensive.
    But these arguments are unrelated to the actual needs of 
the American people. Working parents do not care if access to 
childcare is labeled as infrastructure, they care about having 
a safe, enriched place for their children to grow and learn 
while they work.
    Unemployed and underemployed workers do not care if job 
training programs are branded as infrastructure. They care that 
investments in job creation are made to investments and 
training they will need to access those good jobs.
    A student's parents and school staff do not care if school 
buildings, or community colleges are called infrastructure. 
They care about whether or not all students have access to a 
quality education. So today I hope we can come together to 
discuss solutions that will improve the quality of life in our 
communities and help build back a better economy.
    With that I thank the witnesses for being with us today. 
I'm pleased to yield to Ranking Member Dr. Foxx for her opening 
statement.
    [The statement of Chairman Scott follows:]

        Statement of Hon. Robert C. ``Bobby'' Scott, Chairman, 
                    Committee on Education and Labor

    Today, we are gathered to discuss how substantial investments in 
the infrastructure of our schools, workforce, and communities will help 
overcome the COVID-19 pandemic and build back a better economy for all 
Americans.
    We are finally starting to defeat this deadly pandemic. Roughly 
three million people are getting vaccinated every day and most people 
can get a vaccine in less than 24 hours; the economy created more than 
900,000 jobs in March; and 95 percent of schools are open for either 
full-time, in-person instruction or a hybrid of in-person and remote 
schooling.
    Despite the many reasons for optimism about America's future, we 
cannot ignore the ongoing risks that this pandemic is posing for 
students and workers.
    Millions of displaced workers remain unemployed without the skills 
needed to find good-paying jobs; schools are unable to ensure the 
safety of students and staff due to hazardous and outdated facilities; 
families are finding it even more difficult to find safe and affordable 
child care; and the rising cost of higher education continues to 
restrict opportunities for countless students.
    These challenges have hit some communities harder than others. This 
is particularly true for low-income individuals and people of color who 
entered the pandemic with inadequate access to quality child care, 
education, health care, and workplace protections.
    Over the last year, the Committee has work to protect the lives and 
livelihoods of our constituents. But we cannot be satisfied with a 
return to the pre-pandemic status quo. We have the responsibility to 
build back an even better economy.
    Last month, President Biden unveiled the American Jobs Plan, which 
proposes a range of investments to improve the infrastructure of our 
Nation's child care centers, schools, and workforce.
    This plan invests in our chronically underfunded public workforce 
systems by providing $100 billion for apprenticeships, pre-
apprenticeships, sector-based training, and programs to help displaced 
workers build the skills for new careers. It ensures a more equitable 
recovery for workers with barriers to employment by expanding re-entry 
programs and subsidizing employment, especially for disconnected youth.
    This proposal reflects key elements of the Relaunching America's 
Workforce Act, which would invest $15 billion to help workers quickly 
re-enter the workforce, as well as the bipartisan National 
Apprenticeship Act of 2021, which the House passed earlier this year.
    The President's proposal ensures school facilities are safe for 
students and staff by investing $100 billion to repair outdated and 
hazardous infrastructure at high needs schools. This reflects the 
Reopen and Rebuild America's Schools Act, which would provide $130 
billion to address the deteriorating conditions in our Nation's schools 
and create more than 2 million jobs. In my district, some school staff 
are concerned about returning to campus--not just because of COVID-19--
but also because school buildings have had mold and other serious 
health hazards since even before the pandemic.
    We must invest in school infrastructure so that students and school 
staff can learn and work safely.
    The President is also proposing to expand access to safe and 
affordable child care by upgrading child care facilities and increasing 
our Nation's child care capacity.
    Moreover, we expect the President to soon propose a robust plan 
that will lower the cost of care for families. Even before the 
pandemic, too many families could not afford child care and more than 
half of all families did not even have access to quality child care. 
Last week, Congressman Sablan joined Senator Murray and I in re-
introducing the Child Care for Working Families Act, which would 
increase child care capacity, support child care workers, and ensure 
that all working families can afford quality care.
    Finally, President Biden is seeking to boost our Nation's community 
colleges, which play a critical role in helping underserved students 
access job training and higher education. Unfortunately, these 
institutions have faced severe enrollment declines and funding cuts. In 
response, the President's proposal modernizes community college 
infrastructure to ensure they have the capacity and resources needed to 
serve students and jobseekers. We further expect the President to 
release a proposal to make community college tuition-free and 
incentivize State reinvestment in higher education. This mirrors the 
America's College Promise Act, which Congressman Levin and I introduced 
this week.
    Today, my Republican colleagues may argue that these proposals are 
unnecessary, unrelated to infrastructure, or maybe too expensive. These 
arguments are unrelated to the actual needs of the American people.
    Working parents do not care if access to child care is labeled as 
infrastructure--they care about having a safe, enriching place for 
their children to grow and learn while they work.
    Unemployed and underemployed workers do not care if job training 
programs are branded as infrastructure--they care that investments in 
job creation are paired with investments in the training they will need 
to access those good jobs.
    Our students, parents, and school staff do not care if school 
buildings or community colleges are called infrastructure--they care 
about whether or not all students have access to a quality education.
    Today, I hope we can come together to discuss solutions that will 
improve the quality of life in our communities and help build back a 
better economy.
    With that, I thank our witnesses, again, for being with us today. I 
am now pleased to yield to the Ranking Member, Dr. Foxx, for her 
opening statement.
                                 ______
                                 
    Ms. Foxx. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I thank our 
witnesses for being here today also. When President Biden first 
announced that his administration was working on an 
infrastructure plan, I was cautiously optimistic. Why? Because 
republicans and democrats agree that investment in American 
infrastructure is vitally important.
    But here is where democrats get it wrong. When republicans 
talk about infrastructure, we actually mean it. We want to 
invest in roads, buildings, bridges and highways. For 
democrats? infrastructure is anything that appeases their left-
wing based and union allies. That's not an exaggeration.
    Ninety-five percent of the Biden administration's American 
Jobs Plan and American's Families Plan funds a socialist wish 
list. The left may be trying to further twist the English 
language to suit their political aims, but let's call these 
bills what they are--democrat power grabs disguised as 
infrastructure with little real help for struggling Americans.
    These bills wrongly assume the Federal Government is the 
solution to the challenges facing the Nation, rather than the 
cause. Our country will exceed 100 trillion dollars in budget 
deficits by 2050. Expensive partisan promises are driving that 
number to record highs.
    President Biden's solution tax job creators and taxpayers, 
the same people who are driving our economic recovery in COVID-
19. We cannot balance our spending sprees on the backs of hard-
working American taxpayers, and our children and grandchildren.
    Nor can we continue to blindly throw money at our education 
system and call that a solution. Despite allocating trillions 
in education spending over the last several decades, student 
outcomes are underwhelming.
    Remote learning and the COVID-19 pandemic have only driven 
home the importance of targeting local intervention in 
student's success. If our students, particularly students of 
color, who have been disproportionately impacted by democrats 
shut down politics, are going to bounce back from months of 
learning loss, and compete in an increasingly global economy, 
we need fundamental reform to our education system, not a few 
extra zeroes at the end of a budget request.
    Yet despite evidence that more spending alone will not 
measurably improve student outcomes, democrats are attempting 
to dive even deeper into taxpayer's pockets to shell out 
billions in additional education funding.
    One hundred billion dollars will be allocated to school 
buildings even though only 3 percent of our Nation's permanent 
school buildings were in immediate need or repair according to 
Federal data. This is a failure to assess accurately the 
problem. A failure to come up with an adequate solution, and a 
failure to protect the taxpayers? funds we've been entrusted 
with when we were elected to the people's house.
    These problems aren't limited to K-12 education. Government 
overreach and easy universal access to taxpayer funds have 
contributed to exorbitant college tuition rates and the student 
debt crisis. The democrat's plan doubles down on failed 
policies of the past, wildly assuming that more spending and 
more government mandates are the solution to our languishing 
educational system.
    Democrats love to tell us that offering free college is the 
answer to skyrocketing tuition rates, but the cost of post-
secondary education doesn't simply disappear. It means someone 
else is on the hook for the bill.
    Increasing student aid will only drive up tuition prices 
even further. Once again, more money is a far cry from the 
sensible solution. The Biden administration's failure to 
address the root cause of our inadequate education system also 
hampers our ability to cultivate a qualified workforce for the 
21st Century.
    While our workforce economic recovery ensues, the Biden 
administration is ushering in policy that will limit 
opportunities for workers and job creators, while providing 
political favors to enrich democrat's big labor allies.
    The American Jobs Plan calls for all construction projects 
to utilize project labor agreements, and government mandating, 
prevailing wages, which discourages non-union contractors from 
bidding on taxpayer funded construction contracts and will 
drive up construction costs by more than 20 percent.
    This is far from a win for the American people, rather it's 
another win for union bosses. Republicans support policies that 
harness the power of the free market to create jobs and improve 
the Nation's education and workforce development systems. These 
proposals fall embarrassingly short of that goal.
    Instead of delivering targeted aid that will affect real 
change, democrats are once again throwing money at a problem 
under the guise of relief. American deserve better. I look 
forward from hearing from our witnesses today and I yield back 
Mr. Chairman. Thank you.
    [The statement of Ranking Member Foxx follows:]

           Statement of Hon. Virginia Foxx, Ranking Member, 
                    Committee on Education and Labor

    When President Biden first announced that his administration was 
working on an infrastructure plan, I was cautiously optimistic. Why? 
Because Republicans and Democrats agree that investment in American 
infrastructure is vitally important.
    But here is where Democrats get it wrong. When Republicans talk 
about 'infrastructure,' we actually mean it. We want to invest in 
roads, bridges, buildings, and highways. For Democrats, 
'infrastructure' is anything that appeases their left-wing base and 
union allies. That's not an exaggeration--95 percent of the Biden 
administration's American Jobs Plan and American Families Plan funds a 
socialist wish list.
    The left may be trying to further twist the English language to 
suit their political aims, but let's call these bills what they are: 
Democrat power grabs disguised as infrastructure with little real help 
for struggling Americans.
    These bills wrongly assume the Federal Government is the solution 
to our Nation's woes rather than the cause. Our country will exceed 
$100 trillion in budget deficits by 2050. Expensive, partisan promises 
are driving that number to record highs. President Biden's solution? 
Tax job creators and taxpayers, the same people who are driving our 
economic recovery from COVID-19.
    We cannot balance our spending sprees on the backs of hardworking 
Americans and our children and grandchildren.
    Nor can we continue to blindly throw money at our education system 
and call that a solution. Despite allocating trillions in education 
spending over the last several decades, student outcomes are 
underwhelming. Remote learning and the COVID-19 pandemic have only 
driven home the importance of targeted, local intervention in student 
success. If our students, particularly students of color who have been 
disproportionately impacted by Democrats' shutdown politics, are going 
to bounce back from months of learning loss and compete in an 
increasingly global economy, we need fundamental reforms to our 
education system, not a few extra zeros at the end of a budget request.
    Yet despite evidence that more spending alone will not measurably 
improve student outcomes, Democrats are attempting to dive even deeper 
into taxpayers' pockets to shell out billions in additional education 
funding. One hundred billion dollars will be allocated to school 
buildings even though only 3 percent of our Nation's permanent school 
buildings were in immediate need of repair according to Federal data.
    This is a failure to accurately assess the problem, a failure to 
come up with an adequate solution, and a failure to protect the 
taxpayer funds we have been entrusted with when we were elected to the 
people's house.
    These problems aren't limited to K-12 education. Government 
overreach and easy, universal access to taxpayer funds have contributed 
to exorbitant college tuition rates and the student debt crisis. The 
Democrats' plan doubles down on failed policies of the past, wrongly 
assuming that more spending and more government mandates are the 
solution to our languishing education system.
    Democrats love to tell us that offering free college is the answer 
to sky-rocketing tuition rates. But the cost of postsecondary education 
doesn't simply disappear, it means someone else is on the hook for the 
bill. Increasing student aid will only drive up tuition prices even 
higher. Once again, more money is a far cry from the sensible solution.
    The Biden administration's failure to address the root causes of 
our inadequate education system also hampers our ability to cultivate a 
qualified workforce for the 21st century. While our workforce and 
economic recovery ensues, the Biden administration is ushering in 
policies that will limit opportunities for workers and job creators 
while providing political favors to enrich Democrats' Big Labor allies.
    The American Jobs Plan calls for all construction projects to 
utilize project labor agreements and government mandated prevailing 
wages which discourages non-union contractors from bidding on taxpayer-
funded construction contracts and will drive up construction costs by 
more than 20 percent. This is far from a win for the American people. 
Rather, it's another win for union bosses.
    Republicans support policies that harness the power of the free 
market to create jobs and improve the Nation's education and workforce 
development systems. These proposals fall embarrassingly short of that 
goal. Instead of delivering targeted aid that will affect real change, 
Democrats are once again throwing money at a problem under the guise of 
relief. Americans deserve better.
                                 ______
                                 
    Chairman Scott. Thank you. And without objection all 
Members who will to enter written statements into the record 
may do so by submitting them to the Committee Clerk 
electronically in Microsoft Word format by 5 p.m. on May 12, 
2021.
    I will now introduce our witnesses. Rasheed Malik is a 
Senior Policy Analyst for Early Childhood Policy at the Center 
for American Progress. His work focuses on childcare 
infrastructure and supply, the economic benefits of childcare 
and bias and discrimination in early childhood policy.
    He holds a master's degree in public policy from the Gerald 
R. Ford School of Public Policy at the University of Michigan 
and a bachelor's degree in public affairs from Baruch College.
    Dr. Neal McCluskey serves as the Director for the Center 
for Educational Freedom at the Cato Institution where he 
focuses on K through 12, higher education, and educational 
issues at large. He has written and co-edited a number of books 
focusing on topics such as school choice and the U.S. higher 
education system.
    He holds an undergraduate degree from Georgetown 
University, a master's degree in political science from Rutgers 
University at Newark, a Ph.D. in public policy from George 
Mason University.
    I'll now yield to the gentlelady from Oregon Ms. Bonamici 
to introduce our next witness.
    Ms. Bonamici. Thank you, Chairman Scott. I am very honored 
to introduce a friend who is a leader in education in Oregon 
and nationally. Portland Community College President Mark 
Mitsui as a witness today. He has served as a President of PCC, 
the largest postsecondary institution in Oregon since 2016. 
Prior to that President Mitsui served in the Department of 
Education under President Obama as the Deputy Assistant 
Secretary for Community Colleges.
    Before that he was President of North Seattle College in 
Washington State. President Mitsui has long been focused on 
equity in higher education, and his leadership at PCC, both 
before and throughout the pandemic will certainly inform his 
testimony before the Committee today. I look forward to hearing 
from him. Thank you very much Mr. Chairman, and I yield back.
    Chairman Scott. Thank you. Our next witness after that will 
be Bob Lanter. He's currently Executive Director of the 
California Workforce Association. He's held various positions 
at local workforce investment systems from case manager to 
Executive Director of the Contra Costa County Workforce Board.
    He previously worked for the U.S. Department of Labor's 
Employment and Training Administration as a Federal Project 
Officer. He's a graduate of California State University East 
Bay with a bachelor's degree in business personnel 
administration, and industrial relations.
    He is adjunct faculty at the California State University 
system teaching workforce development.
    Brian Riedl is a Senior Fellow at the Manhattan Institute 
where he focuses on Budget, Tax, and Economic Policy. He 
previously served as a Chief Economist for Senator Portman of 
Ohio, and as Staff Director of the Senate Finance Subcommittee 
on Fiscal Responsibility and Economic Growth. He served as the 
Heritage Foundation's lead research fellow on the Federal 
budget and spending policy from 2001 to 2011. He holds a 
bachelor's degree in economics and political science from the 
University of Wisconsin, and a master's degree in public 
affairs from Princeton.
    Mary Filardo is the Founder and Executive Director of the 
21st Century Fund. She is a leading national 
authority and advocate for improving the equity, efficiency and 
quality of public-school buildings and grounds.
    She founded the 21st Century's School Fund in 
1994 to improve the crumbling public school facilities in the 
District of Columbia. She also helped State PK through 12 
public facilities, public education facilities, at the Council 
on School Facilities where she is the founder of the Rebuild 
America's Schools Infrastructure Coalition, known as RASIC.
    She has a BA in philosophy and mathematics from St. John's 
College, a master's in public policy from the University of 
Maryland, and she is a 1979 Truman Scholar from the District of 
Columbia.
    And we appreciate the witnesses for participating today and 
look forward to your testimony. Let me remind the witnesses 
that we've read your written statements and they will appear in 
full in the hearing record.
    Pursuant to Committee Rule 8(d) and Committee practice, 
each of you is asked to limit your oral presentation to a five-
minute summary of your written statement.
    Before you begin your testimony please remember to unmute 
your microphone. During your testimony, staff will be keeping 
track of your time and a timer will sound when your time is up. 
Please be attentive to the time and wrap up when your time is 
over and then remute your microphone.
    If you experience any technical difficulties during your 
testimony or later in the hearing, you should stay connected to 
the platform, make sure you are muted and then use your phone 
to immediately call the Committee's IT director, whose number 
was provided to you in advance.
    We will let all the witnesses make their presentations 
before we move to Members questions, and when answering a 
question, please remember to unmute your microphone. The 
witnesses are aware of their responsibility to provide accurate 
information to the Committee, and therefore we will now proceed 
to their testimony.
    And I will first recognize Mr. Malik.

        STATEMENT OF RASHEED MALIK, MPP, SENIOR POLICY 
          ANALYST, EARLY CHILDHOOD POLICY CENTER FOR 
                       AMERICAN PROGRESS

    Mr. Malik. Thank you, Chairman Scott, Ranking Member Foxx, 
and Members of the Committee. I appreciate the opportunity to 
testify today. I'd like to begin my testimony by applauding the 
relief funding for childcare providers that Congress included 
in the recent American Rescue Plan.
    The childcare industry was among the hardest hit sectors of 
the economy during the COVID-19 pandemic, and without these 
much-needed funds, many more programs would have permanently 
closed.
    I'm also heartened to see that 25 billion dollars has been 
included in the President's American Jobs Plan, a timely 
infrastructure investment that will help upgrade child care 
facilities so that provides can meet important health and 
safety protocols that can then reduce the risk of coronavirus 
transmission.
    But what I'm really excited to discuss with you all is the 
prospect of a once in a generation investment that would 
dramatically transform our childcare system. For far too long 
childcare has been an economic barrier for families and 
consequently, a restraint on our Nation's economic growth.
    Parents are rarely prepared for the high costs of 
childcare. And on the provider's side a broken childcare 
funding model means many early educators earn poverty wages. 
The primary source of revenue funding our childcare providers 
right now are the tuition and fees that parents pay, but only 
the richest families earn enough to cover what it costs to 
provide high quality childcare.
    And decades of public underinvestment has resulted in a 
market based system where families with higher incomes have 
better child care choices available to them, and we've allowed 
something that should be narrowing opportunity gaps to become 
an engine of inequality, with the early care and education 
workforce paying a price at every stage.
    Here are the facts. The childcare development block grant 
program that's supposed to make care affordable, only reaches 1 
in 7 eligible children. Head Start serves fewer than half of 
those eligible children. State funded preschools only enroll 34 
percent of four-year old and 6 percent of three-year old. And 
more than half of American families live in childcare deserts 
where there simply aren't enough licensed providers nearby.
    This puts middle class families in a precarious position 
with childcare issues forcing millions of parents, almost 
always mothers, to reduce their hours worked, to leave school, 
or leave the labor force. My research has shown that in 2018 
more than 2 million parents experienced some kind of childcare 
related job disruption.
    And I think it's safe to say that number was much higher in 
2020. But as surely as there are costs from this problem, there 
are huge benefits that come from policy solutions. Childcare 
gaps may mean fewer women in the labor force but solving this 
problem will allow for more women to join the labor force.
    A recent Harvard study analyzing more than 125 policy 
interventions found that the most cost-effective policies, from 
a public standpoint, invested in the education and health of 
young children.
    The basic inputs for economic growth are the size of the 
labor force, and the productivity of that labor force. By 
providing the stability and economic relief that comes from a 
well-funded broadly accessible childcare system. We should 
expect positive effects on both of those inputs.
    Investing in the potential of the American workforce has 
never failed to yield positive returns. I'll finish by 
highlighting the bold childcare legislation introduced last 
week by Chairman Bobby Scott.
    The Child Care for Working Families Act would finally 
establish a comprehensive birth to five childcare system. This 
bill would move to an entitlement approach to childcare 
funding, which is the most sustainable path to a system that 
can serve all the families that need it.
    It would build upon the current childcare market, 
preserving parental choice, and investing in a variety of 
models, including home-based childcare and family friend and 
neighbor care. It would make child carefree for low-income 
families, and truly affordable for the middle class, with a 
typical family paying about $9.00 a day.
    It would raise wages for early educators, but it would also 
fund professional development, establish scholarships for 
credentials, and partner with higher education institutions to 
develop a pipeline of qualified future early educators. And 
this bill would do all of this while keeping the focus on 
equity--expanding access first for low-income families, 
children with disabilities, dual language learners, children 
from underserved ethnic and racial groups, and for geographic 
areas with low access.
    I want to thank you again for inviting me to this hearing, 
and I look forward to answering any questions.
    [The prepared statement of Mr. Malik follows:]

                  Prepared Statement of Rasheed Malik
                  
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    Chairman Scott. Thank you. Dr. McCluskey.

 STATEMENT OF MR. NEAL McCLUSKEY, Ph.D., DIRECTOR, CENTER FOR 
              EDUCATIONAL FREEDOM, CATO INSTITUTE

    Mr. McCluskey. Chairman Scott, Ranking Member Foxx, Members 
of the Committee thank you for inviting me to speak with you 
today. My name is Neal McCluskey, and I am the Director for the 
Center of Educational Freedom at the Cato Institute, a non-
profit, non-partisan public policy research organization. My 
comments are my own, and do not represent any position of the 
Institute.
    Now since the onset of COVID-19 the Federal Government has 
significantly increased its spending on education, and with new 
proposals that would increase it even more, it is important to 
ask whether there's good reason to expect significant new 
spending to result in commensurately better outcomes.
    I start though by noting that the vast majority of Federal 
education spending is unconstitutional. Federal Government has 
only specific enumerated powers and authority to broadly spend 
on education is not among them. That said, moving on from 
Constitutionality, does performance today give good reason to 
believe very large increases in spending will produce 
commensurate improvements in outcomes.
    In elementary and secondary education, the national data 
suggests not. Looking at the Federal national assessment of 
educational progress long-term trends exam, results for 17 
years old's, sort of the final products of the K through 12 
system, show large increases in spending, and not been 
accompanied by commensurate increases in learning, at least as 
judged by these exams.
    Between 1959, so looking 12 years before the first long-
term trend reading test, so as to capture 17-year old's full 
education, between 1959 and 2012 real per pupil funding rose 
from about $4,000.00 to roughly $13,500.00. In contrast, the 
share of 17-year old's meeting or exceeding the middle 
performance level of math rose from just 52 percent to only 60 
percent.
    In reading, between 1971 and 2012 there was no improvement 
for this more than tripled funding. Looking at other tests, and 
breaking scores down by proxies for income, the outcomes were 
sometimes somewhat better, but not commensurate with spending.
    This is especially true since by most measures child 
welfare greatly improved, including with real income for the 
lowest percentile of earners rising from about $19,000.00 in 
1979 to $36,000.00 by 2017 after accounting for transfers and 
taxes.
    In higher education Federal spending rose from about 23 
billion adjusted for inflation, 1965, to more than 107 billion 
in 2012, as well as greatly increasing student loan volume. 
This no doubt helped to increase degree attainment, but also 
increased prices substantially.
    Much evidence suggests it did not increase learning 
commensurately, including two assessments of literacy that 
showed literacy among degree holders dropping appreciably as 
degree attainment grew.
    We seem to get more pieces of paper called diplomas, but 
not greater skills and knowledge. We also found employers 
increasingly asking for degrees for jobs that did not 
previously require them.
    In light of the data showing hallowing out degrees, there's 
reason to be concerned about ``free'' college proposals. Such 
proposals are certainly well-intentioned, especially 
considering the astonishing sticker price at some colleges and 
universities. But the root problem remains.
    When the consumer does not pay with their own money, or 
money they receive voluntarily from others, they will tend to 
overconsume.
    Making college free would likely make matters worse than 
status quo, limiting any of the discipline inducing requirement 
that consumers pay for school at least using some of their own 
money. It would also hurt what is good about higher education 
in America.
    It must respond to students driving schools to provide 
better experiences. Making college responsive only to 
government would change incentives toward lobbying and 
navigating bureaucracies. It could also lead to rationing, as 
institutions might find themselves without the resource to 
expand and greatly accommodate greatly increased demand.
    Community colleges are relatives easy to make free to 
students with average tuition fees costing less than the 
average Pell grant. What we see in those schools are very low 
completion rates.
    According to the National Student Clearinghouse, the 
students that started a 2-year public college in 2014, only 
40.2 percent have completed a program of study within 6 years.
    Making public colleges free would likely kill also many 
private colleges, often religious, which public institutions 
cannot be.
    Finally, a bit about school's physical condition. Again, 
worry is understandable, but some data suggests the overall 
conditions of the school may not be bad. As recently as the 
2012-13 school year, a Federal report found districts reporting 
that only 3 percent of current buildings were in poor 
condition.
    Other data suggests that districts tend to use facility's 
money for building new schools, or other sort of flashy 
projects. Such basics as maintaining HVAC systems get lower 
prioritization.
    The desire to put as much money as possible into education 
is certainly understandable, but evidence suggests that 
increased spending in the past did not translate into 
commensurate increases, and skills and knowledge, thank you.
    [The prepared statement of Mr. McCluskey follows:]

                  Prepared Statement of Neal McCluskey
                  
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]


    Chairman Scott. Thank you. Mr. Mitsui?

STATEMENT OF MARK MITSUI, PRESIDENT, PORTLAND COMMUNITY COLLEGE

    Mr. Mitsui. Hello Chair Scott, Ranking Member Dr. Foxx, and 
Members of the Committee, and again in particular our amazing 
Representative for Oregon, Suzanne Bonamici than you so much 
for your kind introduction.
    For the record my name is Mark Mitsui, and I'm President of 
Portland Community College in Portland, Oregon. Thank you for 
having me here today to speak with you about the role workforce 
training will play in our recovery, and the critical need for 
investments in community college infrastructure.
    Speaking of infrastructure, in Portland we have a lot of 
bridges, and I think of Portland Community College as one of 
them. On one side of our bridge we have hard working people who 
just need an educational opportunity. And on the other side we 
have high-skilled jobs that offer living wages that need to be 
filled.
    We, like all community colleges, are the bridge that 
connects the two. Investments in the students who cross the 
bridge, and investments in the bridge itself can keep America 
on the forefront of the world economy and create a more 
equitable recovery.
    That's why we appreciate the President's proposed 12-
billion-dollar community college infrastructure investment. 
Developing leading edge skills requires leading edge equipment 
and facilities. That equipment is getting old, and our 
facilities are as well. Due to inadequate funding, academic 
facilities have a backlog of infrastructure deferred 
maintenance projects.
    In evaluating facility needs the American Association of 
Community Colleges estimates that the national total deferred 
maintenance, renovations and upgrades to be 60 billion dollars. 
While there is a cost to these needed improvements, the good 
news is that community colleges are a great investment.
    At PCC, for every public dollar that's invested in our 
college, taxpayers see a $2.70 return. Society has a whole in 
Oregon, sees a return of $8.20 in reduced social cost and 
increased earnings. Likewise, a national commitment to 
education and training is also essential because post-secondary 
credentials are the new minimum.
    According to Georgetown University, 99 percent of jobs 
created during the last recovery went to those with at least 
some post-secondary education. According to the Lumina 
Foundation about half of adults between the ages of 25 and 64 
lack a post-secondary credential.
    Without upscaling opportunities, half of the adults in this 
country are at risk of being locked out of the next economy. We 
also see that COVID is accelerating automation, as employers 
seek to pandemic-proof their operations. The World Economic 
Forum estimates that by 2025 on a global basis, automation may 
displace 85 million jobs, and foster 97 million new roles.
    Here in the U.S. this shift will disproportionately impact 
our most marginalized communities. Clearly, community colleges 
are a bridge between the old jobs lost, and the new ones 
gained. Another key barrier to building back better is basic 
needs and security.
    According to a national survey conducted during the 
pandemic by the Hope Center at Temple University, nearly 60 
percent of respondents indicated they experienced either food 
or housing insecurity with a black/white gap of 60 percent. I 
applaud components of the America's College Promise Act that 
could push states to address food and housing insecurity 
resulting in higher completion rates.
    ACP also incentivizes states to reinvest in our colleges, 
which will reduce tuition and student debt. And I can't over-
emphasize the importance of the student success components of 
this bill, including the establishment of the Student Success 
Fund.
    Finally, support of minority service institutions like on 
AANAPISI's, HBCU's, and TCU's are essential for bridging equity 
gaps. In conclusion, I'd like to end with a student's story. 
Tara Roberts, a single mom with three children came to PCC. She 
was in tears when she reached for the classroom door for the 
first time, frightened but determined.
    At PCC she found a community that supported and challenged 
her. Well Dr. Tara Roberts, now holds a doctorate in nursing, 
and is an administrator at Virginia Garcia Memorial Health 
Center. All eight of her children completed post-secondary 
education, two now teach at PCC.
    America's College Promise in the infrastructure investments 
are about helping more people like Tara and their families 
cross that bridge to a better life. Thank you for the 
opportunity to speak with you today.
    [The prepared statement of Mr. Mitsui follows:]

                   Prepared Statement of Mark Mitsui
                   
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]


    Chairman Scott. Thank you. Mr. Lanter.

    STATEMENT OF BOB LANTER, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, CALIFORNIA 
                     WORKFORCE ASSOCIATION

    Mr. Lanter. Good afternoon Chairman Scott, Ranking Member 
Dr. Foxx and Members of the Committee. My name is Bob Lanter, 
Executive Director of the California Workforce Association, and 
I'm honored to join you to discuss the Federal investments 
needed to create jobs and further stimulate our economy.
    The proposed 100 billion Federal investment in the American 
Jobs Plan would set our country on a sustainable, equitable 
path, at a severe economic disruption. I will touch on the 
following policy and funding recommendations to ensure key 
components of the American Jobs Plan are met.
    The Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act, WIOA, should 
be directly funded to provide immediate and economic recovery 
services. Funding must be made available to ensure communities 
can build equitable recovery. Fund industry, and sector-based 
training to build talent pipelines that lead to family 
sustaining wages and invest in proven and effective models.
    WIOA's workforce boards, networks of local education, 
training providers, business, labor management partnerships and 
economic development organizations invest Federal funds to 
businesses and individuals that need them most. Increased 
direct funding through workforce boards allows for these 
existing partnerships to expand, and addresses significant 
workforce challenges we face, like long-term unemployment and 
job losses due to COVID.
    The principles for the workforce investments in the 
American Jobs Plan, come from the Relaunching America's 
Workforce Act. Legislation led by Chairman Scott and many 
others on this Committee, which provides additional funding and 
important flexibilities to WIOA, like funding workforce board 
and community college partnerships, and increasing the cap on 
incumbent worker training.
    As we know now, impacts of COVID hit the most vulnerable 
populations earlier and longer. These effects continue to 
create significant barriers to employment for minorities, 
women, disabled individuals, out of school use, and ex-
offenders, among others. Access to childcare, transportation, 
food, and housing often prevent these individuals from 
enrolling in education, or even getting a job.
    We continue to see signs that an economic recovery may not 
mean everyone will recover equitably. The American Jobs Plan 
calls for 12 billion dollars to be targeted to build equity in 
labor markets. We have begun work like this in California as 
the bipartisan Breaking Barriers Initiative provides 15 million 
dollars to partnerships between community-based organizations 
and workforce boards serving vulnerable populations like ex-
offenders.
    The Initiative focuses on three outcomes, enrollment into 
post-secondary vocational education, enrollment into 
apprenticeship programs, or placement into a job that has a 
career path to self-sufficiency.
    Workforce boards are well-positioned to deliver these 
services at wider scale with the funding proposed. The American 
Jobs Plan calls for a 40-billion-dollar investment in new 
dislocated worker programs and sector-based initiatives.
    Our nation's training system must allow laid off workers to 
retool, but also provide necessary supports to complete 
training programs and obtain quality employment, especially 
those Americans who are long-term unemployed. In California the 
High Road Training Partnerships Initiative is a 25-million-
dollar demonstration project designed to model sector-based 
strategies from around the State, ranging from transportation 
to healthcare to hospitality, the HRTP model exemplifies the 
focus on industry partnerships that deliver equity, 
sustainability and job quality.
    The American Jobs Plan proposes 48 billion to build the 
capacity of the workforce development system. One of the key 
areas for this effort is registered apprenticeship--a proven 
earn and learn model. Workforce boards could become more active 
intermediaries in registered apprenticeship, and increased 
participation from non-traditional industries.
    Costs for curriculum development, training for wage 
subsidies and data collection validation should be allowed and 
supported through this legislation. Job creation strategies 
like these will enable us to build our regional economies back 
stronger.
    In closing, the investments in the American Jobs Plan will 
facilitate thousands of successful workforce and economic 
development models like the ones I have spoken about in my 
testimony, providing resources that are desperately needed by 
workforce stakeholders will lead millions of individuals from 
unemployment and low-wage, dead-end jobs to careers that will 
lead them on a path for a positive degree.
    Thank you for inviting me Mr. Chairman and Ranking Member, 
and I look forward to the opportunity to answer questions.
    [The prepared statement of Mr. Lanter follows:]

                    Prepared Statement of Bob Lanter
                    
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]



    Chairman Scott. Thank you very much. Thank you for your 
testimony and we will next hear from Mr. Riedl.

STATEMENT OF MR. BRIAN RIEDL, SENIOR FELLOW IN BUDGET, TAX, AND 
               ECONOMICS, THE MANHATTAN INSTITUTE

    Mr. Riedl. Good afternoon Chairman Scott, Ranking Member 
Foxx, and Members of the Committee. My name is Brian Riedl. I 
am a Senior Fellow at the Manhattan Institute. I have been 
invited here to step back and provide a general critique of the 
American Jobs Plan. I will make four points.
    First, the 2.6 trillion-dollar cost is fiscally 
irresponsible given America's daunting Federal budget outlook. 
This would be the most expensive non-emergency law in half of a 
century, and it's coming at a time when the national debt is 
already projected to double from 17 trillion to 35 trillion 
between 2019 and 2030.
    Overall, Washington is projected to run 100 trillion 
dollars in budget deficits over the next 30 years according to 
CBO, and if interest rates exceed the CBO baseline by just 1 
percent point, that would add 30 trillion dollars in interest 
costs over 3 decades, just 1 percentage point.
    And even if this 2.6 trillion is mostly paid for in new 
corporate tax hikes, it is still fiscally irresponsible because 
we already need every progressive tax proposal just to pay for 
the current programs we already have in the baseline.
    Second, while infrastructure can certainly use some 
upgrades, lack of funding is not the main problem. Rather, 
America's infrastructure is among the most expensive 
bureaucratic and slowly built in the world. Consider that. CBO 
reports that Federal investment delivers average returns of 
just 5 percent, compared to 10 percent for private sector 
investments.
    The per mile cost of highway construction quadrupled 
between 1960 and 1990 and has continued to grow since then. The 
David Bacon Act raises wage costs by 22 percent, mandatory 
project labor agreements add costs too. Our subway systems cost 
quadruple the world average to build.
    Many of these delays are driven by the necessary but slow 
environmental impact statements, and the historical artifact 
reviews. Consider that environmental reviews commonly exceed 
1,000 pages and require on average 7 years to complete, with 
several taking more than 17 years.
    And no ground can be broken until the project has survived 
the legal gauntlet, including appeals by any litigant. By 
comparison, these statements take one to 2 years in Canada, and 
three and a half years at most in the EU.
    Third, despite the title of American Jobs Plan, there is a 
broad economic consensus that infrastructure policies do not 
provide short-term stimulus. First, because as I mentioned, you 
need 7 years to finish the environmental impact statement 
before you can even break ground.
    Additionally, Federal investment is usually offset by State 
and local investment cuts, which nullifies the effect. 
Additionally, infrastructure is most needed in the fast-growing 
communities where the unemployment rate is already lower than 
typical. Thus, the congressional Research Service has included 
that the short-term effects of both output and unemployment 
could be nullified or even negative.
    When combining the painful taxes of ineffective spending, 
the Penn Wharton budget model reports that the American Jobs 
Plan will over the long-run create no net jobs, reduce wages by 
0.8 percent, reduce the capital stock 3 percent, and reduce the 
GDP by 0.8 percent. And Penn Wharton is not a conservative 
organization.
    Finally, the American Jobs Plan includes a historic 
expansion of corporate grants, loans, and contracts with little 
to no congressional oversight. Rather than rely on tax 
incentives and tightening patents and copyrights, Washington 
would micromanage the innovation process by sleepily raising 
corporate taxes and then returning hundreds of billions of 
dollars in Federal grants to companies that undertake 
government-approved projects.
    The administration is seeking huge discretion in dispensing 
hundreds of billions of dollars, which risks becoming a budget 
busting slush fund for favored industries, businesses, and 
allies, from Cylindra to the now defunded banks technology 
program, Washington's track record picking winners and losers 
is not particularly strong, and these programs often invited 
corruption and collusion between big business and government.
    Today's promising companies have no problem securing loans 
and equity from a financial system, a wash in capital and low 
interest rates. More corporate wealth there is not necessary.
    Therefore, I recommend that Congress pare back the cost of 
this proposal, encourage State and local governments to use 
their 500 billion dollars in recent aid, and reform our 
infrastructure policies to make them more effective and 
efficient, thank you.
    [The prepared statement of Mr. Riedl follows:]
    

                   Prepared Statement of Brian Riedl
                   
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]


    Chairman Scott. Thank you. And our final witness will be 
Ms. Filardo.

 STATEMENT OF MARY W. FILARDO, FOUNDER AND EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, 
                    21st CENTURY SCHOOL FUND

    Ms. Filardo. Thank you very much. Chairman Scott, Ranking 
Member Foxx, Members of the Committee thank you for your 
invitation to participate in this hearing. I'm Mary Filardo, 
and I'm honored to be here today.
    I'm a long-time D.C. resident whose children went to 
decrepit public schools here in the Nation's capital. Seeing 
that my children and so many others were spending their school 
days in classrooms that were baking hot, or too cold, and 
buildings with leaky roofs, fire code violations, asbestos, and 
poor air quality, this inspired my life's work.
    I founded the 21st Century School Fund to 
provide research, model policies, and advocacy to eliminate the 
structural inequities in public school facilities. The success 
of our efforts in the District of Columbia public schools led 
to the expansion of this work in other cities, states, and the 
Federal Government.
    Deficiencies in our Nation's public-school facilities have 
been well-known for decades. We know that lead paint, asbestos, 
PCB's are harmful, that all schools must be ADA complaint, that 
schools in severe weather zones must be resilient, that schools 
must be built to educate a modern workforce, and that 
antiquated schools need to change to support changing codes and 
programs.
    My job today before this Committee is not to convince you 
that these conditions are problematic. I do not believe a 
single Member would argue that any child or staff should be in 
unhealthy, unsafe, or educationally deficient buildings.
    Rather, I will address the following: Does our country need 
a Federal program to support school facilities? Is the Reopen 
and Rebuild America's Schools Act the right Federal solution? 
And does RRASA belong in a major infrastructure package?
    First why do we need a Federal program? Our nation's 
public-school facilities are critical to ensuring equitable 
educational opportunities. On average schools are nearly 50 
years old, and many have never been fully modernized. But our 
State and local system for funding public school facilities 
improvements is broken.
    Despite their best efforts, many districts are unable to 
raise the capital needed to address the shortcomings of their 
facilities. These challenges have resulted in gross disparities 
between the wealthy and poor districts. Federal inaction to 
address these issues is exacerbating the inequalities.
    States provided only 18 percent toward district capital 
construction projects over the 20 years from 1994 to 2013, 
resulting in nearly half a trillion in long-term debt for local 
school districts. The solution to these challenges lies in a 
local, State and Federal partnership with the State at the 
center.
    A Federal role that builds State capacity to meet 
district's needs in the most underserved areas is absolutely 
essential to reforming this broken system.
    Second, is RRASA the right Federal solution? RRASA was 
developed over many years, through extensive stakeholder input, 
including local and State practitioners, industry and labor 
representatives, and the civic groups working to improve child 
health, the environment and the quality of public education.
    As a formula grant to the states, RRASA would establish a 
Federal education interest in public school facility issues 
without putting Federal action in the critical path of State or 
local decisions. RRASA addresses the structural inequities by 
requiring targeted Federal funds to the lowest wealth and 
highest needs school districts, but without mandating specific 
State program on how to allocate funds.
    RRASA gives states the capacity to assist districts, 
capacity to rural districts that haven't built or modernized a 
school in over a generation, and capacity for urban districts 
that are overwhelmed by the monumental scale of their capital 
needs.
    The capacity building that RRASA would support at the State 
level will help districts meet the increasing complexities of 
educational facility planning, financing, design and 
construction. States can reduce burdens on districts and reduce 
costs for taxpayers.
    RRASA is smart public policy and is the right Federal 
solution for these issues. Finally, does RRASA belong in an 
infrastructure package? The public works traditionally funded 
with Federal funds are not traditional infrastructure, it's 
just infrastructure that traditionally gets Federal funds.
    In fact, public school facilities are the second largest 
capital outlay for State and local governments after highways. 
In a recent political poll, 70 percent of Americans agree that 
public schools should be considered part of America's 
infrastructure.
    Roads and bridges get Federal funds for the same reason our 
public-school infrastructure needs Federal funds. State and 
local governments can't raise enough revenue to support their 
capital needs. This is precisely why the Federal Government 
steps in. Applying this logic, this should be the same for our 
public-school facilities.
    But despite their best efforts, State and local revenues 
fall short, and our preliminary analysis for the 2021 State of 
our schools, the gap was 40 billion a year in 2016, and is now 
50 billion a year for 2020.
    Last, schools belong in the infrastructure package because 
like most public works projects, school construction projects 
invigorate the economy. RRASA will increase manufacturing, 
create 2 million jobs, and support building industry services.
    In summary, RRASA is good policy, good politics, good 
business, and good for the future of our country and should be 
enacted. Thank you very much.
    [The prepared statement of Ms. Filardo follows:]

                   Prepared Statement of Mary Filardo
                   
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]


    Chairman Scott. Thank you very much. Under Committee Rule 
9(a), we will now question the witnesses under the five-minute 
rule. I will be recognizing Committee Members in seniority 
order.
    And again, to ensure that the Members' five minutes is 
adhered to, the staff will be keeping track of time and the 
timer will sound when your time is expired. Please be attentive 
to the time and wrap up when your time is over and then remute 
your microphone.
    As chair, I will recognize the gentleman from Connecticut 
Mr. Courtney to begin the questions.
    Mr. Courtney. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you to all 
the witnesses. And again, I think this hearing could not be 
more timely, I mean partly because obviously we have a 
President who is really serious about doing more than just 
announcing infrastructure week, but actually but an 
infrastructure plan on the table for Congress that has it paid 
for, which is you know long overdue.
    It's also timely because you know the economy certainly is 
beginning to recovery, but we're already seeing that the sort 
of post-pandemic profile, this economy is going to be different 
than what existed even just a year and a half ago when the 
pandemic first struck.
    The New York Times today has an article in the business 
section as the economy rebounds manufacturers face new hurtles. 
And it describes very powerfully what I think probably all of 
us know in our districts which is that trying to get workforce 
that's got the right skillset to take on jobs right now is a 
big problem and a big issue for employers.
    So we have this situation that I think Mr. Lanter sort of 
alluded to it where we have large numbers of dislocated workers 
who are from sectors like retail and service industries, 
restaurants, who may not be coming back either any time soon or 
at all.
    And at the same time, we have a new demand for workers who 
don't have the skillset to connect to those opportunities. And 
then you overlay that with the infrastructure bill which is 
talking about investing in critical new activities such as 
semi-conductor and chip manufacturing, which I think frankly, 
anyone who looks at that issue in terms of the fragility of the 
supply chain into this country, we understand that's really as 
much a national security issue as it is an economic issue.
    The same with production of off-shore wind turbines. And in 
my district in the one in Connecticut, we're going to have wind 
turbine assembly platforms that are going to be taking place 
that again is a whole new skillset in the building trades, and 
we actually have this venture that's now been spearheaded by 
Vestas which is a Danish company that's the largest wind 
turbine manufacturer in the world, that's a project labor 
agreement, incorporating the building trades associations, 
electric cars, I mean the list goes on and on.
    So Mr. Lanter, I guess you know I would just you talked 
about how the workforce boards need to sort of you know take on 
a new level, if not new task in terms of being the interface 
with apprenticeship programs. Can you again, just sort of walk 
through that process because you know the WIOA Program again 
takes people who are sort of the pre-apprenticeship level in 
making sure that they actually get inside you know, a new 
employer's front gate.
    I think it's still sort of a connection that we probably 
need to strengthen at a time like this. I think you need to 
unmute sir, yes.
    Mr. Lanter. Yes. Thanks Congressman. I appreciate your 
question and yes, workforce boards are quite poised to really 
assist with the expansion of the apprenticeship model. You know 
the apprenticeship model, you mentioned it, is really a unique 
model that will enable individuals to not only receive the 
education and training that they need to get into a career path 
that will allow them to raise and support a family.
    But it enables individuals who haven't been successful in 
the traditional education system to learn while they earn, and 
more importantly, it allows individuals who are at the lower 
end of our economic spectrum, those low-wage, low-skilled 
workers who need income to support a family.
    Oftentimes they can't afford to go to school. It enables 
them to get that key income while they're training. And so, 
here's the role of the workforce boards. They really play a key 
role as intermediaries, really bringing together the industry 
demand with the critical education partners, and then they can 
also market that work to the community, and really recruit from 
the most vulnerable populations, key candidates who will be 
successful in the training programs.
    Right now, in California we have several successful models 
of registered apprenticeship programs in industries. Some of 
the ones you mentioned IT, engineering, manufacturing, 
aerospace, early childhood education, and these apprenticeships 
also include youth and that's really key to dramatically 
increasing skills and wages for millions of American workers, 
and for turning profits for business.
    And I would just say this last thing. You know in the 
America's Job Plan we can fund cost for curriculum development, 
training wage subsidies for these hard to serve populations, 
data collection and validation to make sure we're accountable, 
and this is really critical to our Nation's largest business, 
our small and medium businesses.
    They often cannot afford these startup costs, and the 
administration costs that come with earn and learn models like 
apprenticeship, but this is the key to unlock a more equitable 
recovery. Thank you.
    Mr. Courtney. Thank you I yield back.
    Chairman Scott. Thank you. Next there are questions from 
the distinguished Ranking Member of the Committee, gentlelady 
from North Carolina, Dr. Foxx.
    Ms. Foxx. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Dr. McCluskey thank you 
for talking about the Constitution in your testimony. I don't 
want to get too far into the details of these proposals without 
bringing the conversation back to that core issue.
    We can all clearly see that education is not included in 
the Constitution and was in fact among the many powers 
delegated to the states by the founding father's envisioned 
keeping power concentrated at the most local level possible.
    Mr. McCluskey. Well because they knew that there were only 
a few specific things that a national government would be good 
at and that it should do, and those were basically relations 
with other countries, other national level things, and then 
making sure that for instance, states didn't do things like set 
up trade barriers against each other.
    Otherwise, people know their own needs, and communities 
know their own needs much better than the national government 
would, and the Federal Government, and it was really not even a 
thought that the Federal Government would be involved in 
something like education.
    And then there was mention of a national university, and it 
was decided that well you know that could fall under a specific 
power, which was control over the District of Columbia. So the 
founders, and for most of our history we recognize that 
education was something that's very important to individuals, 
and the families, and to specific communities, and they should 
be in charge of both funding it, and how it runs.
    And of course, when the Federal Government funds something, 
it ultimately ends up instituting a lot of control.
    Ms. Foxx. Thank you Dr. McCluskey. I'm deeply concerned 
with employers requiring a college degree for work that does 
not require that level of education because it acts as another 
hurdle preventing people from climbing the socioeconomic 
ladder.
    Why might credential inflation be partially the fault of 
the Federal Government, and the democrat's proposal for 
``free'' college exacerbate this phenomenon. What can Congress 
do or stop doing to encourage more skill-based irony.
    Mr. McCluskey. Yes if we look historically you could sort 
of see where several Federal laws greatly increased aid that 
went to students, and that led to massive additional 
consumption of higher education, which of course was the 
intention, but that had huge unintended consequences which you 
have more and more people attaining something called a degree, 
but the degree as the national assessment of adult literacy, 
the P Act test has shown us that.
    The average degree keeps losing more and more as time has 
gone on of the skills and knowledge that it represents. And 
what's made that even tougher is that increasingly it will 
enable employers to ask for a degree when people come for a 
job, not because that degree signifies that you have specific 
skills and knowledge, but it's becoming more and more a signal 
that if you don't have that degree, well maybe there is 
something that's not quite right with you.
    And so, we've made it sort of a floor, instead of a 
meaningful signal of things that you can do, and that you know 
because you have received an education.
    Ms. Foxx. Thank you. Mr. Riedl, Riedl excuse me, you 
covered the daunting Federal budget outlook in your testimony. 
In your written statement you called double or triple the 
national debt ``extraordinarily reckless.'' What would the 
real-world consequences be, the economy of doubling or tripling 
the national debt?
    Mr. Riedl. Thank you. The numbers are scary. According to 
the Congressional Budget Office doubling the national debt 
would reduce the GNP by $6,000.00 per person relative that if 
we don't double the debt. $6,000.00 per person lower GNP by the 
end of 30 years per person.
    So, a family of four that's $24,000.00 a year less income. 
Because there's less investment, less productivity, less 
growth, and more of the returns go to the international 
investors who are purchasing our debt. There's also the 
interest costs you know. The CBO basement assumes that in 30 
years just under the baseline, half of your taxes go to 
interest on the debt.
    And if we go up to 250 or 300 percent of GDP, like if 
interest rates rise, or the President's plan is implemented, 
two-thirds of all of your taxes will go toward interest on the 
debt in 30 years. And the problem of course is you don't feel 
this while it's building. It's like the termites in the 
foundation.
    And then when the debt crisis hits and interest rates are 
up and you have to raise taxes, it's too late to pull it back 
very easily. You have to double taxes, slash spending, or print 
money. Better to avoid the problem in the first place.
    Ms. Foxx. Absolutely. And I want to point out Mr. Chairman 
that Mr. Lanter talks about the apprenticeship programs, and as 
you know you have said before we have a 43 percent graduation 
rate for apprenticeship programs, and you've called it the gold 
standard, others have called it the gold standard.
    I hardly think we hold up any institutions with a 43 
percent apprenticeship--with a 43 percent graduation rate as a 
gold standard, pushing more people into apprenticeships is not 
the way we go if they're controlled by the unions.
    I was talking about registered apprenticeships. So, we 
don't need to be doing that. Thank you very much to our 
witnesses again and I yield back.
    Chairman Scott. Thank you. Next Member for recognition is 
the gentleman from Northern Mariana Islands Mr. Sablan.
    Mr. Sablan. Yes. Thank you very much Chairman for holding 
this hearing. I want to thank all the witnesses also for 
joining us and for sharing of their opinions, their comments on 
this hearing. I want to take special--Mr. Chairman I'll be 
bouncing between our hearing and other Committee where we're 
having a 5 hour markup, but I'd be remiss if I don't thank Mr. 
Mitsui and his college community and of course all the people 
of Oregon for hosting Mariana's residents who relocated to 
attend school in Oregon and other parts of the mainland.
    And some, like my own daughter has decided to become full-
time residents of Portland. Ms. Filardo. I want to thank you 
for your resounding support of RRASA, so I'm going to followup 
with a question.
    You, according to the GAO 5 percent of school districts 
rely on local revenue as their primary source of funding for 
school infrastructure. Can you describe the unique challenges 
that high poverty schools and districts face in financing 
school construction projects and how does this perpetuate 
inequity?
    Ms. Filardo. Yes. That's a really good question, and it's 
one that face poor districts have been wrestling with. Because 
if you don't have high property value, if you don't have sales 
tax revenue, if you don't have any other form of public revenue 
to borrow against, you can't actually do major projects in your 
schools.
    So, part of what happens to these districts is rather than 
having a million dollars to replace a roof, they keep patching, 
patching, patching, but then eventually it gets so bad that 
it's a problem. So, they really end up spending more on the 
maintenance side, disinvesting on the capital side, but they 
have little choice.
    Just one other point on that even in states where there is 
a State role to help fund, like in Massachusetts, or in Georgia 
for example, the State will only do so much, and so sometimes 
the poorest districts can't even raise their 10 percent in 
order to get their State matches.
    So, it's very difficult for these low wealth districts.
    Mr. Sablan. Thank you, thank you very much. Mr. Malik 
research suggests that high quality early care and education, 
including high-quality preschool can be a key point in reducing 
achievement gaps. I was just in a conversation with Committee 
staff earlier before this hearing about early care and 
education.
    So, could you please tell us what does research show about 
the emergence of racial and income achievement gaps? When 
during development do these gaps emerge and grow wider between 
children?
    Mr. Malik. Yes, and thank you for the question. The fact is 
as children enter the educational system in kindergarten, there 
are already well-documents gaps in their educational experience 
that by that point send them on trajectories toward even wider 
achievement gaps.
    You know there have been numerous studies that show 
investments in early childhood education. Don't just have those 
educational benefits, but they have you know provide a 
stability to families that lowers stress, that has a kind of 
cumulative benefit, that has you know not just those early 
educational benefits for children, but that stability really 
does produce greater long-term outcomes and the kind of safety 
and security that young children need economically within the 
family.
    Mr. Sablan. OK. So, does the current childcare system which 
we have and which access to quality care is largely predicated 
on parental income then itself too narrowing, or closing 
achievement gaps? And why would it be important that all 
children, regardless of race or income, have access to high-
quality childcare?
    Mr. Malik. Yes, right now we know that you know childcare 
deserts disproportionately impact Hispanic and Latino 
communities.
    Mr. Sablan. Like my district in the islands.
    Mr. Malik. Very much so there. There is also just this 
market-based reality for early childhood education means that 
children in families with the highest incomes are four times as 
likely to be going to a licensed childcare program than 
children in the lowest income quintile.
    So right now, we have just vast inequalities that we need 
to solve for.
    Mr. Sablan. All right. Thank you very much Mr. Chairman my 
time is up. I yield back.
    Chairman Scott. Thank you. The gentleman from Wisconsin Mr. 
Grothman I think is next. Mr. Grothman.
    Mr. Grothman. Hi. A couple of questions. First of all, I 
kind of want to reiterate what the Chairman said. I'm a little 
bit disappointed. We have so many people from the education 
background here looking for the Federal Government to be very 
involved, and of course it's unconstitutional.
    And one of the reasons why our country is so in debt right 
now is people don't study the Constitution. They think the 
Federal Government should take care of everything. So, I'm 
disappointed that so many people in the field of education feel 
that way.
    But I am going to lead off with Mr. Brian Riedl. Brian, I 
know there's a lot in here for preschool. I know--I'm sorry did 
someone say something? I wondered if you could comment on the 
ideas of sending children to preschool. Is it successful, or is 
it in some cases it's even counter-productive?
    Mr. Riedl. It's tough for me to comment specifically on 
research that would have been done by my colleagues. I did not 
do the preschool. I know in terms of Head Start there have been 
studies that have shown that Head Start isn't as successful as 
some would like.
    There have been studies that have shown I believe the 
Department of HHS that some of the effects of programs like 
Head Start end up being more short-term, rather than long-term 
and that we need to find you know more creative, interesting 
ways to help younger children.
    Mr. Grothman. I believe you'll find, and I'm sorry you 
didn't read it, but I believe you'll find that preschool can 
even be counterproductive, that frequently it's better for 
children to be with their parents. I know a lot of people are 
hostile to their parents, you know, spending a lot of time with 
their children, becoming a little bit more hostile, but I think 
some of these programs not only are not helpful, but are even 
counterproductive.
    But I'll move over to Dr. McCluskey then. We talked about 
more money for four-year degrees. Could you comment on say the 
number of people in four-year institutions today, and I 
certainly in my district, again and again, run into people who 
feel like they're ripped off.
    They feel like they have a big college debt, or that they 
spent four or 5 years of their life on getting a four-year 
degree and it didn't get them a job other than a job they would 
have been qualified for when they were 16 years old anyway.
    Could you comment on what you think would be an ideal 
number of people, percent of our population involved in a four-
year degree program as opposed to what currently are there 
today?
    Mr. McCluskey. I am sort of hesitant to pick an ideal 
percentage because I don't know all the different needs of 
different people. And I think part of the problem we've had is 
the Federal Government said, 'Well we're going to put our thumb 
on the scale to get people to consume four-year degrees.?
    And what I can say is the data clearly shows we have too 
many four-year degrees. Data from the fed shows that about a 
third of people with a bachelor's degree for their career are 
in jobs that do not require that credential.
    So, you may say well we should reduce the percentage of 
people with a degree by a third. The other problem we have 
though because all of this is dynamic, is that the more we 
subsidize people going to college, the more we have jobs that 
call for degrees.
    So, we would say well, these people are not underemployed 
right now because this job now calls for a degree, but it may 
not have before. And so, it's hard to peg the right percentage. 
The way we find out what's right is it's from the bottom up--
people paying for education themselves, or with money they get 
voluntarily from others because that's what focuses us on what 
do we need, how much are we willing to pay for it, what do we 
get along with it.
    Maybe we don't need the waterparks and lazy rivers we see 
in universities. So, I think the thing we can say most clearly 
is probably about a third of people with certainty got 
bachelor's degrees and are not using them right now.
    Mr. Grothman. How do you feel, and I'm just saying because 
there's so many good jobs out there that don't require, 
particularly skilled jobs that don't require bachelor degrees? 
It would be a mistake. Not only a mistake because the Federal 
Government is spending money they shouldn't have to spend, but 
for individuals spending time going to school that would be 
better off either training or getting a very well compensated 
job in the construction field and manufacturing field what have 
you. Do you feel that's true?
    Mr. McCluskey. Yes. I think a lot of that change needs to 
happen at the K through 12 where we have very little school 
choice and we need a lot more, so people who don't want to be 
in that go to the four-year school track can start to seek out 
apprenticeships and other sort of education earlier than that.
    But I certainly think if you look at the history of degrees 
in this country, we have massively over produced them, and 
driven the price higher because it's all sort of fueled by 
subsidies that mainly come from the Federal Government.
    Mr. Grothman. I think my time is about up, but we'll show 
here to the other witness masking the drawbacks of universal 
pre-K. And I would suggest that for everybody on the Committee 
to read, because not only is it sometimes not helpful, its 
counterproductive.
    And I know you know people don't like you know going back, 
they want additional family and are very hostile right now, but 
it's something everybody should familiarize themselves with 
before we put any more Federal money into pre-K. Thank you very 
much. And that's all my time.
    Chairman Scott. The gentleman from Wisconsin offer that for 
the record?
    Mr. Grothman. Sure. We'll put it in there for the record. 
Absolutely.
    Chairman Scott. No problem without objection I enter it 
into the record. Thank you. The gentleman's time is expired.
    Chairman Scott. The next witness is the gentlelady from 
Florida Ms. Wilson.
    Ms. Wilson. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And before I start 
asking my questions, I just want to give a thumbs up for Head 
Start and that's where I started my educational career, and 
also universal pre-K. I don't know what kind of studies show 
that universal pre-K does not close the achievement gap between 
African-American children and children of color and white 
children.
    So, when we begin to talk about a once in a generation 
American Families Plan, we've got to consider universal pre-K. 
I want to say to Mr. Mitsui from Oregon and Ms. Bonamici. I can 
say that you stand as a textbook example of where we're trying 
to go as far as free community college for our communities.
    And I want to know what has the Portland Community College, 
what kind of recommendations can you give to the community 
colleges around the Nation who are going to benefit from the 
American Families Plan, this once in a generation plan, and 
what can you or Ms. Bonamici as you talked about American 
Promise Grant and what can you say today to these other 
counties, my county, Dade County, Broward County, to offer free 
community college to students?
    And what do we do with that second 2 years that's not in 
the American Families Plan.
    Mr. Mitsui. Thank you Congresswoman Bonamici, would you 
like me to answer or?
    Ms. Wilson. Oh no this is for you not Ms. Bonamici.
    Mr. Mitsui. OK thank you, sorry. Just getting used to the 
protocol. So, thank you for the question. You know I think the 
America's College Promise will help generations of students 
access community college in a more equitable way.
    And one of the biggest barriers that our students run into, 
in fact two-thirds of our students according to the real 
college survey are basic needs insecurity. And so, in addition 
to assisting with tuition, there are parts of the American 
College Promise Act that incent the states to change some 
policies in order to improve access to public benefit programs 
while students are going to college.
    So that they don't have to worry about what they're going 
to eat, where they're going to sleep, or other barriers that 
they have. You know one of the big reasons some students 
dropped out was because they were care givers, either they were 
taking care of their kids, they're taking care of parents, or 
they're taking care of siblings.
    And to the extent that there's support for them while 
they're going to school they're going to finish. They're more 
likely to be able to complete. And it's when they complete and 
they earn that certificate, or they earn that associate's 
degree that they achieve escape velocity out of poverty.
    Also basic needs insecurity is an equity issue because in 
the history of our country it's communities of color that's 
disproportionately impacted by poverty, by food insecurity, by 
housing insecurity, and being able to improve access to post-
secondary education is also an equity issue and it's an anti-
poverty measure.
    And you can't once somebody earns that credential like Dr. 
Tara Roberts, you cannot take that away. I mean they have the 
knowledge. They have the skill, and they're more likely to be 
able to earn a living wage, and then their children are more 
likely to graduate as well.
    So, what we do is something called Pathways to Opportunity. 
And this is a project led by PCC, and we work with the Oregon 
Department of Health Services, and we're working on integrating 
benefit programs and wrapping around students while they're in 
school and helping them to graduate.
    So, when you add America's College Promise on top of that 
you know, graduation rates are going to increase. Students are 
going to be able to focus on school. It's really, it's just so 
hard to focus on school when you're hungry, or when you're not 
sure where you're going to sleep. That makes it really, really 
hard to finish, or how your kids are going to be taken care of, 
especially now during the pandemic when everybody is at home.
    For the last 2 years for that transfer work at the State 
level is also very critical. And so, I know there's work going 
on across the country and regionally, which either Western 
InterState Commission of Higher Education has something called 
the InterState Passport that helps to reduce credit wastage 
during the transfer process.
    In Oregon we're doing transfer mapping, and so there are 
strategies that can be employed to facilitate transfer and make 
sure those credits are not wasted, and that students graduate 
from a four-year as well.
    Ms. Wilson. Thank you so much. My time is up Mr. Chair, but 
I want to put in the record some articles I have. One says 3 
million kids missing from school because of COVID-19 is a 
travesty. The other one says report estimates 1 to 3 million 
students missing from school since March, and the other 
unprecedented numbers of students have disappeared during the 
pandemic. Schools must work harder than ever to find them.
    Chairman Scott. Thank you without objection those will be 
entered into the record, and that gives us some issues to use 
our oversight responsibilities to make sure that the schools 
districts are using the money we sent them from the Rescue Plan 
to take care of that problem. Thank you.
    Chairman Scott. Next Member to be recognized is the 
gentleman who appears to have landed in his office. The 
gentleman from Georgia Mr. Allen.
    Mr. Allen. Yes, sir thank you. Thank you, Mr., Chairman and 
I want to thank all the witnesses for being here. Mr. Riedl, I 
appreciate your data related to the current spending levels. 
One of the big issues in my district is workforce, and as I 
understand it, we still have about 10 million people on 
unemployment, and we've got about 20 million work capable 
people trapped in poverty on government programs.
    And we can't seem to get those folks to go to work. And so, 
but at the same time we're throwing all this money at the 
problem, and the big issue--and you know, is there some data 
out there that I mean employees and employers are telling me 
that the problem is the enhanced, well one is the stimulus 
checks.
    And of course, let me say that Georgia's economy is only 
off about .6 percent right now. We've had an amazing comeback, 
and of course we opened early, and under CDC requirements and 
you know did all the things that we could do to do it right 
under our Governor's leadership.
    But you know what bothers me is you know all this money we 
spent for stimulus checks and for enhanced unemployment, yet 
what's keeping the economy going is the workforce, which we've 
all admitted to here today.
    You know why do intellectuals in Washington, DC. think they 
know more about what a State or a county or a city need to do 
to fix those problems?
    Mr. Riedl. Yes, I mean that's a great question. The 
enhanced unemployment, especially it was originally $600.00, 
now it's $400.00 Federal bonus. It made a lot more sense back 
when we didn't want people to go to work. I don't think it was 
a major disincentive a year ago, or 8 months ago when for the 
most part we wanted people to stay home.
    But now that the economy is reopening, now that people are 
getting vaccinated, we want people to go back to work. All of a 
sudden, the $400.00 bonus can become a disincentive. There's an 
economic consensus that overly generous unemployment benefits 
do provide disincentives to work.
    The $400.00 bonus right now is more than the median 
unemployed person earns in the short-term. So again it wasn't a 
big problem when you didn't want people to work, but as the 
economy reopens over the next couple months, that's going to 
become a bigger barrier that Congress is going to need to look 
at possibly before it expires, because otherwise you're going 
to see a lot of help wanted signs, and a lot of people saying 
well, maybe I should wait until August or September because I 
might actually lose money.
    Mr. Allen. Yes, but my colleagues just a month ago passed a 
highly partisan, we viciously opposed this stimulus bill that 
has created the problem. I mean two trillion. Now we're looking 
at another two trillion. I mean you know the taxpayer is going 
to get very tired of this.
    Tell me something on the scale of where this debt is going, 
and then let me tell you republicans and democrats both are 
responsible for. I'm not laying it on my friends, you know, but 
the bottom line is you know it's not sustainable. We've seen 
what it's done to other countries, and we see where our 
position is right now.
    And also from a national security standpoint it increases 
our security risk enormously because all of a sudden if a 
country said OK we're pulling all of our investments out of the 
United States, people aren't standing in line to buy our debt 
anymore, we've got a big problem.
    So, tell me about your work with that, and if we don't stop 
this what could possibly happen?
    Mr. Riedl. Yes, I mean we're on course to have the debt go 
from 17 trillion to 35 trillion dollars in a decade. This is 
remarkable. If the entire President's campaign agenda was 
enacted, the debt would hit 42 trillion dollars at the end of 
the decade, up from 17 trillion.
    At that point it's 130 percent of the economy, or one-
quarter bigger than at the end of World War II. At least World 
War II ended, and the debt came down. We right now are facing 
100 trillion dollars in baseline debt over the next 30 years. 
You don't want the debt to go to 200--300 percent of the 
economy. That's too much for China and Japan to bail out even 
if they want to.
    At that point you really have to start to run the printing 
press and monetize it. Again, this is dangerous ground for us, 
and the danger is once the debt gets that big it's really hard 
to reverse it.
    Mr. Allen. Yes, yes, I mean it would take under a mortgage 
if you went to mortgage this debt it would take 500 years to 
pay it off. Those folks are not going to be happy with it. 
Thank you Mr. Chairman I yield back.
    Chairman Scott. Thank you. The gentlelady from Oregon, Ms. 
Bonamici.
    Ms. Bonamici. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Ranking Member 
Foxx, and thank you to our witnesses, especially President 
Mitsui. In response to Representative Wilson's question. 
Representative Allen I think you need to mute, thank you.
    In response to Representative Wilson's question I just want 
to add that PCC has a program called Future Connect. This 
wonderful program and I know President Mitsui you did submit 
some materials about it to support low income first-generation 
students, and that really makes a difference.
    So I'm actually really glad we passed the American Rescue 
Plan, which my colleague was just talking about because among 
other things it's made vaccinations more widely available, it's 
helped schools and businesses get the support they need to 
reopen safely, but families and the economy are still 
struggling, and I'm very grateful that President Biden heeded 
my call for a 100 billion dollar investment in the workforce 
funding, that he also included support for child care and 
school buildings in the proposed American Jobs Plan.
    And I look forward to working with my colleagues on this 
Committee to advance the plan so our communities cannot just 
rebuild but build back better. President Mitsui thank you for 
your meaningful testimony. I recently joined Chairman Scott in 
reintroducing the Relaunching America's Workforce Act which 
includes a 2-billion-dollar investment to revive the trade 
adjustment assistance community college and training grant 
program, an important program with a long name.
    Which supports, as you know, community college and industry 
partnerships in developing workforce programs. So how would 
this funding help community colleges like PCC scale up 
workforce programs, especially to support displaced, dislocated 
and under employed workers?
    Mr. Mitsui. Thank you Representative Bonamici. Yes, the 
TAACCT program was a landmark program that catalyzed systems 
change across the country. In particular I think about the 
State consortia, and how it made a huge difference in Oregon 
around career pathways.
    And career pathways as you know are short-term certificates 
that are stackable credentials with wrap around support 
services. And our career pathway program at Portland Community 
College has a 90 percent plus completion rate, and of course 
high placement rates, and individuals are experiencing wage 
progression.
    Also, we have almost eliminated the equity gap and so our 
students of color graduate at nearly the same rate as the 
average rate. When I was in Washington State at North Seattle 
Community College, we were part of Air Washington. That was a 
TAACCT grant with a State consortia.
    I can remember us being--there were several community 
colleges with avionics programs. We were all in the same room 
with a large major aerospace employer and we all got on the 
same page on the curriculum, and we compared the knowledge, 
skills, and abilities for the different avionics positions.
    And then the employer calibrated their job titles so that 
when students graduated, they knew which jobs to apply for. We 
found that we needed to actually truncate our curriculum, make 
it more efficient, and that saved students time and effort. 
Multiply that times 50 states, and you know that's the kind of 
impact that TAACCT had.
    So, we you know, having another version of that you know at 
the same time where we have an infrastructure investment, it's 
really important to have a human infrastructure investment.
    Ms. Bonamici. Absolutely.
    Mr. Mitsui. So that we don't have a skills gap.
    Ms. Bonamici. Thank you. And I want to use my last 
remaining time to ask Mr. Malik, thank you for your comments 
about childcare, and for highlighting the importance of solving 
the childcare crisis.
    We know that when the pandemic hit schools and communities 
got together and made sure that students could get meals during 
the day even though the school building was closed. I'm really 
grateful for everyone in Oregon who worked on getting those 
meals to students.
    So, I chair the Civil Rights and Human Services 
Subcommittee, and I'm working on an update to the Child and 
Adult Care Food Program to better address child hunger issues 
for early learners and their families. So, Mr. Malik you 
mentioned the importance of CACFP in your testimony.
    It currently provides up to two nutritious meals per day 
for children in care. So I'm now working on reintroducing my 
legislation to expand access to nutritious meals during the 
additional time that children are in care, so how would 
children who are in care for 8 hours a day or more benefit by 
receiving a third meal or snack, and how in general would this 
help working families, Mr. Malik.
    Mr. Malik. Thank you for the question. The CACFP, Child 
Adult Care Program is so crucial. It delivers as you said 
billions of meals per year. Right now I think it could really 
benefit from a few key changes to allow those three meals per 
day, to meet the modern structure of the child care system, and 
as well potentially to kind of change those reimbursement rates 
I think for sites which may be out of step with rising food 
costs, especially as child care programs are starting to serve 
really healthy meals, which young children need.
    Ms. Bonamici. Thank you and I see my time is expired. I 
yield back, thank you Mr. Chairman.
    Chairman Scott. Thank you. The next person thank you, the 
next person I have on my list is the gentleman from Idaho, Mr. 
Fulcher, is he still on the screen? There he is.
    Mr. Fulcher. Yes.
    Chairman Scott. Mr. Fulcher, OK.
    Mr. Fulcher. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and a comment and a 
question just briefly, but in terms of the comment I just want 
to share a perspective on the so-called free community college 
for the first 2 years.
    I know the intention is good. I know the intention is good. 
The only problem is it just doesn't work. And we've all, or at 
least most of us have children, or have had children or 
grandchildren, and if you don't have some skin in the game, if 
they're not somehow invested in this process, they're just not 
as serious about it.
    There's not the reward. If you offer something as a gift, 
if you will, then there's just simply not the same response, 
the same ownership. And that also carries over to what happens 
in the classroom with these instructors. They now would have a 
large group of students who just simply don't care.
    Now that's not always going to be the case, but that's 
certainly going to be a trend. And as we all know there is no 
such thing as free. I'm asking you all to pay for my children's 
education, and you're asking me to pay for yours. That's how 
this really does work. There is nothing for free on that front.
    Also, what's bothersome, and what leads to my question has 
to do with the Federal and State match, the one dollar for 
every three and so on. In our State we don't have the benefit 
of a broad-based property tax, which many states use as a 
mechanism to fund their education system and other things.
    The reason for that is we don't own the land. It's a 
Federal State. We're a tenant in the State, the Federal 
Government has two-thirds of the land mass. And so that's got 
continuous struggle. Other states have similar issues if 
they've got large percentages of Federal land.
    So, to that end, I'd just like steer a question now to Mr. 
McCluskey on that front. If there is such a piece of 
legislation that says hey the Federal Government is going to 
kick in three dollars, or whatever that number is, but the 
State needs to kick in a dollar, what is the assurance that we 
may have, that the Federal Government being 30 plus trillion 
dollars in debt, will we continue to be able to do that because 
the State is on the hook after that. Mr. McCluskey?
    Mr. McCluskey. Yes that is really a very real problem. The 
first thing I'd say of course we have way too much money in 
higher education right now. If we break it down by per pupil, 
we've seen huge increases in the total amount spent for 
decades, so there's a lot of money there.
    But what we've seen in other countries when you compare 
OECD countries, the more that you get direct subsidies through 
schools, so not as we've done it through students, but directly 
to schools, and we're talking about public colleges and 
universities here.
    The amount of money, the share of money comes from the 
government, the fewer resources there actually are in the 
schools as we look at the trend for these countries. Because 
there is a limit to how much you can spend. And when you make 
something free you incentivize more and more people to consume 
it because it's not their money, so you run into a big problem.
    There's only finite resources in the world, no matter how 
many good things we'd like to do with them, there's a limit. 
And you run into the problem of you incentivize people to go to 
school and you hit that limit on how much you can spend, and 
that's when you see things like rationing, and sort of becoming 
you have systems where you have to pass a test to access the 
university, and I don't think we want to go in that direction.
    Mr. Fulcher. Thank you for that. And that makes sense to 
me. I have just one followup question just because the benefit 
of the drawback of serving our State legislation, and 
particularly on the finance Committee, but I've seen this 
happen before.
    When the Federal Government offers a program, or offers 
money, oftentimes there are strings attached that come with it, 
and those strings don't necessarily reflect the local value 
system, or the local priorities that come along with it.
    If this were to be put into place what would you envision 
as to be some of those strings that the Federal Government may 
want to put on those dollars as a prerequisite for them being 
offered?
    Mr. McCluskey. Well the things I've seen suggested in the 
past are where you would put limits on what schools can spend 
their money on. And partially that's well-intended. You don't 
actually want colleges and universities to have those water 
parks. But it would also be quite possibly, rules about well 
you can only have so nice a student union, or your food can 
only be so good, and certainly we have extreme expenditures on 
that with the subsidies to students.
    But it's very dangerous of the Federal Government to get 
money to run a school and start saying well here are the sort 
of things that you cannot make better. What's really good about 
our system and what probably makes it the best in the world in 
higher ed is that schools do have to respond to students, and 
in many ways that makes them better, including access to 
professors, nice campuses, and lots of things like that.
    Mr. Fulcher. Mr. McCluskey thank you. I'm out of time. Mr. 
Chairman I yield back.
    Chairman Scott. Thank you. Our next Member is the gentleman 
from California who made quite a sacrifice to get here. Thank 
you, Mr. Takano, for being here today. I understand you had to 
take the red eye and you're with us today at noon, so thank you 
so much. The gentleman from California Chairman Takano.
    Mr. Takano. Thank you, Chairman Scott. I'll do my best not 
to be grumpy. My first question is to Mr. Malik. Mr. Malik some 
of my colleagues across the aisle have suggested that Federal 
investments in preschool would be harmful for children, a claim 
that I believe is false.
    As you and Mr. Riedl, one of the republican witnesses 
stated, there is a vast literature demonstrating that preschool 
yields favorable short-term outcomes for young children. 
Moreover, there is growing literature showing that preschool 
benefits last up to adulthood.
    Children who attend preschool are more likely to graduate 
from high school and earn higher wages than their peers who do 
not attend preschool. Can you confirm my claims Mr. Malik?
    Mr. Malik. Yes Congressman there's a vast and very strong 
literature in economics and public policy research showing that 
Head Start broad based investments in early childhood 
education, in preschool, universal preschool, all have benefits 
in the short-term educationally, and in the long-term.
    And I think the reference to harmful outcomes is referring 
to the Quebec universal pre-K program that was instituted in 
the 1990's. And what I would say to that is that there's a 
lesson to be learned there, and that lesson is integrated into 
the Child Care for Working Families Act, which is you do not do 
this on the cheap.
    Doing that will only shuttle lower income families into 
low-quality programs. And this approach that is outlined in the 
Child Care for Working Families Act does quite the opposite.
    Mr. Takano. Mr. Malik by high-quality we mean there's many 
elements to it, but an essential element is that we have well-
trained teachers that these instructors we just can't--it's not 
babies today, that there is learning going on.
    Mr. Malik. Yes you know quality has two components. There's 
the physical things that you need for a good educational 
program, and that's important to invest in--the physical 
infrastructure. But I would argue more importantly, especially 
for early childhood education, it's those interpersonal 
interactions, it's those important moments of hearing and 
understanding and listening to children of developing those 
social, cognitive emotional skills.
    Mr. Takano. Well thank you. So that means trained teachers. 
We've already spent 39 billion dollars for childcare under the 
American Rescue Plan. How are those funds helping the childcare 
sector?
    Mr. Malik. Yes. Those dollars were crucial because the 
childcare sector suffered an unprecedented set of losses last 
year. About half of programs reported going into debt, personal 
debt in some cases, to try and keep the doors open. Enrollment 
dropped by 50 percent and more, even after programs opened up 
after being closed for months.
    So, the childcare programs were already on super slim 
margins. Their operating costs went up with all the safety and 
health protocols necessary, enrollments went down, and they 
were in the red. And so those dollars were crucial.
    Mr. Takano. My time is short. Why do we need to spend more 
under the American Families Plan?
    Mr. Malik. What we need is a permanent long-term fix for 
what got us into this situation in the first place. We need to 
invest in the workforce as you mentioned. Quality comes from 
those early educators. And right now, with an average childcare 
educator making $12.00 an hour, I mean that leads to high 
turnover, that leads to economic stress for those educators.
    It does not set us up for success.
    Mr. Takano. Thank you. Mr. Mitsui I only have 30 seconds 
left, but you made a comment that really struck me. You said 
that one of the things impacting completion rates among 
community college students is lack of access to childcare. So, 
we're talking here about enabling people to get back to work 
into jobs, accepting you need childcare for that.
    But you also need childcare to help students complete their 
programs, is that right?
    Mr. Mitsui. Absolutely. Gallup has indicated a high 
percentage of care givers stopped out because they needed to 
take care of their children, siblings or parents. And that 
means they can't complete their training and education that 
they need to fill these jobs.
    Mr. Takano. So, we also need elder care as well. We spoke 
about childcare, but people who are older in their 30s and 
their 40s need to take care of their aging parents, that's also 
an issue. I yield back Mr. Chairman, sorry I went over, and I 
hope I wasn't grumpy.
    Chairman Scott. Thank you so much you did well. Next, we 
have the gentlelady from Iowa Ms. Miller-Meeks.
    Ms. Miller-Meeks. Thank you so much Chairman Scott, Ranking 
Member Foxx and to all of our witnesses. I think it's vastly 
interesting listening to this topic of conversation. I'm from a 
family of 8 children. Neither of my parents were college 
educated, and so I find it interesting that listening to this 
discussion.
    My parents and siblings would not be trained teachers and 
would not have been able to somehow produce a child that's a 
first-generation college graduate, the only one in their family 
to ever go to medical school and graduate.
    So I think we should be cautious on what we consider to be 
trained and adequate child care because there are millions of 
parents out there with no college education and no training who 
raise phenomenal children, children who have done amazing 
things to put men on the moon, develop airplanes, develop 
educational systems and help start businesses that are Fortune 
500 companies all from very little resources.
    And because of that, that is the genesis of my question. 
There has been so much I think, especially in K through 12 and 
in our society that really is funneling students toward a 
bachelor of arts degree program, and for me it is their sole 
focus, but there are others of us who advocate for a variety of 
post-secondary options for students.
    Mr. McCluskey in your written testimony you write in 1960 
only 7.7 percent of Americans 25 years and older had a 
bachelor's degree or higher. In 2019 the number was 36 percent. 
The important question is whether this was a net gain for 
society? And if you can very briefly elaborate on what you mean 
by whether this is a net gain for society?
    Mr. McCluskey. Sure. So, we often talk about education and 
the shorthand for are we getting more education, do we have 
more degrees? Do we have more attainment? But what we really 
want to know is, are people getting more skills and knowledge 
that are of value to them and in the economy.
    And that's why unfortunately in higher ed we don't have a 
lot of standardized tests, but we do have two. We have again 
the National Assessment of Adult Literacy, 1992-2003, and then 
more recently we have the P ACT. Both of them had two 
administrations. And you could see that the literacy levels--
this is post-literacy, you know can you read a newspaper 
article? There was document literacy, can you read a tax form 
and understand it?
    And there was also sort of whether you were literate in 
math, you know whether you were numerate. And what we saw was 
prose and document literacy had been dropping consistently as 
we've increased credentials.
    The sort of good news as we just stated sort of flat when 
it comes to numeracy, but what this strongly suggests is that 
we're not actually creating more knowledge, more skills, we're 
creating more pieces of paper called diplomas, and that isn't 
what we should be aiming for, and we're doing it for a lot more 
money for each one of those diplomas.
    Ms. Miller-Meeks. Thank you so much and Mr. Riedl I believe 
incentives matter. And as a State Senator we often address this 
when we are looking at healthcare professions, and when I would 
meet with colleges would talk to them, you know, we can do 
other loan programs, we can do scholarships, but what are you 
doing to lower prices.
    So, you know Congress I think well intended, has wanted to 
make college accessible and affordable. That was the point of 
government backed student loans, and now direct Federal student 
loans. While this is an admirable policy goal, colleges and 
universities were able to increase their prices because 
students had easy access to credit, and you know in essence a 
guaranteed payment program.
    So, it would cover that higher balance. So, this in turn 
created more risk of going to college, more risk of 
indebtedness. And I think if you could just address that in the 
brief time, I have left remaining I would appreciate it thank 
you.
    Mr. Riedl. That's a great question. I mean it makes sense 
theoretically. Colleges will charge as much as their target 
students are willing to pay, and as financial resources rise 
with student aid, colleges will capture that aid. We see the 
same thing happen in healthcare.
    Since 1978 the price of college tuition and fees has 
increased 1,335 percent with the CPI inflation of 293 percent, 
so it's growing four times faster than inflation. And there is 
a link. The New York Federal Reserve confirmed a few years ago 
that each dollar in subsidized student loans brings a 60 cent 
rise in sticker price tuition, which even goes to the people 
who don't get the loans.
    So, you give the loans to one group, another group gets a 
higher tuition as well. Even Pell grants raise tuition by 37 
cents on the dollar. And so, we have to be careful. We mean 
well when we do increase student aid, but if the colleges are 
just going to raise tuition to capture it, we're not really 
helping with affordability.
    Ms. Miller-Meeks. Thank you so much. I yield back my time 
Chair.
    Chairman Scott. Thank you. Next the gentlelady from North 
Carolina Ms. Adams.
    Ms. Adams. Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you for holding 
this meeting today, for the witnesses, thank you for sharing 
your expertise as well. President Biden's American Jobs Plan 
commits among other things to address critical infrastructure 
needs at our K-12 schools, early childcare facilities, and 
community colleges, and to provide needed support for workforce 
training and development.
    I'm pleased as well that the plan mentions investing in 
research infrastructure and research and development, at 
Historically Black Colleges and Universities and other 
minority-serving institutions. However, I think that HBCU and 
MSI deserve an even greater commitment to adjust their overall 
infrastructure needs and to support their efforts to build 
facilities in order to prepare students for 21st 
Century jobs.
    I'm working with colleagues on both sides of the aisle in 
both chambers on legislation right now to address this. And I 
look forward to seeing it considered by this Committee in the 
near future as part of our efforts to advance this American 
Jobs Plan.
    Now for my questions Mr. Mitsui, can you explain on the--
can you expand, excuse me, on the infrastructure needs of 
community colleges across the country? And beyond renovation 
and maintenance, can you explain how additional funding would 
help community colleges purchase the up to date technology and 
equipment necessary to provide students with the education they 
deserve?
    Mr. Mitsui. Absolutely. Thank you for the question. So 
advanced manufacturing is a good example of a sector that 
requires very expensive equipment. And in order to stay on the 
leading edge internationally, we need a big turning machines, 
we need additive manufacturing laser centering machines. We 
need equipment that is quite expensive if we're going to train 
and educate students to move into high wage jobs, actually 
where there are a lot of openings.
    And so, take aviation science as an example. Jet engines 
are kind of expensive. And they're really important. You know 
our air freight and power plant students need to get it right, 
and they're great jobs waiting for them when they complete. As 
we transition also to electric vehicles, we're going to need to 
install a lot of electric charging stations across the country.
    And how do you do that? How do you train that? If you're an 
automotive tech, how do you repair and all electric vehicle 
without electrocuting yourself? That's a really important basic 
skill, right?
    So, all of these are skills that do require equipment, and 
by being able to invest in the leading-edge equipment, we're 
going to have leading edge workers.
    Ms. Adams. Thank you, sir. You know this investment in 
community colleges is critical and I know our HBCU's need it as 
well. Mr. Lanter in your testimony you discuss some of the 
challenges that individuals face in accessing affordable 
childcare, transportation, food, and housing, which often 
prevent them from enrolling in education and training programs, 
or even getting a job.
    So how important is it to provide equitable access to 
supportive services through WIOA? And should we be considering 
expanding access to these supports through the American Jobs 
Plan?
    Mr. Lanter. Yes, thank you Congresswoman for the question. 
You know this is so critical really, these basic support 
services. We don't need you know reports and studies to tell us 
that an individual will really not be successful finding and 
obtaining a job if their basic needs are not met as well.
    These support services you mentioned are all basic needs 
that hinders one success in obtaining education and finding a 
job. Things like childcare, housing, food, medication, tools, 
license fees, these are things that people making less than 
$27,000.00 a year just cannot afford and will keep them out of 
education.
    And so, the second part of your question yes, we should 
expand the uses to support services in many different ways. The 
dollars should be available in amounts so that they're not 
rationed. In my career I've seen support services rationed 
because there's just not enough money to meet the demand and 
the need.
    We need to expand the types of services that are allowable 
so that we can really break cycles of inequities. Things like 
car repairs, and purchases for cars, grooming for homeless 
individuals, housing are really critical and often overlooked 
support services, and then last really critical, support 
services need to be offered early in job training programs, and 
later in job training programs.
    So, for example, after somebody obtains a job, we can 
provide support services so that they can keep a job and then 
get a better job moving to quality jobs and moving them out of 
poverty thank you.
    Ms. Adams. I'm out of time. Thank you, sir. Mr. Chairman I 
yield back.
    Chairman Scott. Thank you. The gentleman from Utah Mr. 
Owens.
    Mr. Owens. Thank you. Thank you, all the witnesses, for 
your participation today. Dr. McCluskey one of the central 
arguments you made against free college proposal is it would 
likely make post-secondary education less responsive to 
students. This sounds very familiar to me.
    I'm the Ranking Member of the K through 12 Subcommittee, 
and I can tell you one of the witnesses of our public education 
system is how unresponsive parents can be. We've seen that 
frustration being the forced closing of our schools, yet 
democrats want to convert our current Federal student aid 
system in post-secondary education to something that looks more 
like the K through 12 model.
    All the thoughts at least Federal students aid generally 
goes to students and follows those students to the institution 
they choose. Is there some reason to think that funding 
educational systems rather than the students, will give us 
better results if we put it into post-secondary level that is 
now in the elementary and secondary level?
    Mr. McCluskey. Right. I think one of the things we've seen 
actually very clearly, more clearly than even before with 
COVID-19 is that public schools often are not very responsive 
to parents, and it can be hard because you may be trying to 
serve different kinds of parents, but we've seen a lot of 
parents say I want my school to be open. I want it to be in 
person.
    What we've seen from CDC reporting and research is it's 
safe to be there, but these schools will not open for us. On 
the other side, private schools are very responsive with in-
person education, they are very responsive at providing sort of 
substantive education right very soon after lockdowns began, 
and there is a fundamental difference of incentives for public 
schools, although local, and that's often good, they still 
don't respond directly to parents.
    Parents don't get to decide whether the money comes or 
goes, and so they tend to be less responsive to what parents 
want. In higher education we do have a lot of excess because 
there's so many subsidies that come to the students. But 
there's no question that lots of college universities are very 
responsive to what students what, what they desire.
    It's that sometimes those desires are kind of excessive 
because they're paying for college with so much money that 
actually comes from other people, and those other people are 
taxpayers.
    Mr. Owens. Thank you so much. Mr. Riedl you mentioned in 
your testimony that the middle class will have to pay the taxes 
to cover our Federal Government's spending commitments. Why is 
that? And what are the estimated tax increases on the middle 
class that will be needed to be covered with our current 
commitments and those proposed by the democrats?
    Mr. Riedl. Thank you for that question Congressman. Let's 
assume that we can pay for the entire President's agenda on tax 
hikes for the wealthy and corporations. It's pretty unlikely, 
but let's just assume we can. You still have an underlying 100 
trillion dollars in 30-year budget deficits, and at that point 
you've already maximized taxes on enriching corporations for 
other priorities.
    So how are you going to close that 100 trillion-dollar 
shortfall? Forget balance the budget. Let's just try to 
stabilize the debt at its current share of GDP. To do that you 
would need to close a budget gap rising to 6 percent of GDP. If 
you were to do that with taxes, you would need either an 18 
percent increase in the payroll tax, or a 35 percent value 
added tax.
    You'd basically have to double taxes on the middle class 
just to pay for the programs in the current baseline over 30 
years. And again, you have to do that because we've already 
used up all your upper income tax hikes to pay for all the new 
spending. That's the danger.
    Once you use up all those tax hikes the middle class is all 
that's left to pay for the rest, and that's what Europe does. 
Europe finances their big government on value added taxes and 
payroll taxes on the middle class.
    Mr. Owens. Thank you so much. In the little bit of time I 
have left Dr. McCluskey my next question relates to the first 
one. It interesting you use the NAEP scores to discuss the lack 
of progress we're seeing in educational outcomes. Spending has 
exploded.
    The Department of Education at the University of Arkansas 
recently released a study that compared the NAEP scores to the 
level of educational freedom available in the states. And the 
study concluded that, ``Higher levels of education freedom are 
significantly associated with higher NAEP achievement levels, 
and higher NAEP achievement gains.''
    Dr. McCluskey given this, should we shift the K through 12 
funding to a more student-focused model?
    Mr. McCluskey. Yes. I mean I hesitated to say that the 
Federal Government should do it. I don't think the Federal 
Government should be involved. But clearly, what we've seen in 
that study and many others is the more that parents are able to 
make decisions about where their kids and the money to educate 
them go, the better the outcomes because then the schools have 
to respond to those families.
    It's not about how well they lobby or negotiate a 
bureaucracy. The parents will leave if we don't provide what 
they want. And interestingly that study also showed it 
controlled for a lot of different variables, and it showed 
actually negative correlations between the amount of spending 
and NAEP scores.
    Mr. Owens. Thank you so much and I yield back my time. 
Thank you.
    Chairman Scott. Thank you. The gentleman from California, 
Mr. DeSaulnier.
    Mr. DeSaulnier. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thanks to the 
panelists. I want to say hello to someone I've known for many 
years, Bob Lanter. Nice to see you Bob. I just maybe an 
observation and welcome the panelists to make any comment. 
Having spent a good deal of time in the last few months around 
infrastructure while serving on the Transportation Committee, 
it strikes me obviously that infrastructure changes.
    The foundation of this country infrastructure was very 
different. And as we struggle to define that under the purview 
that this Committee and how much infrastructure needed as I 
understand it, and I look at the definition, the dictionary 
definition.
    The support system that helps for productive households and 
individuals. So clearly, in my mind's eye, education, 
preschool, vibrant preschool, after school programs and another 
hearing right now about hunger in America, and we're focusing a 
lot on youth hunger.
    The infrastructure has to be efficient and effective, so 
maybe we're having the wrong argument as I listen to these 
debates in Congress about what the Federal Government's role 
is. I think the Federal Government's role should be helping the 
states and local--and here I agree with the Ranking Member, to 
facilitate the conversation about what the client needs.
    And in this instance, it's that productive citizen in 
America who needs early education, who needs the kids to be 
well-fed and connected to the private sector as somebody who 
used to be in the food industry.
    So as we try to define infrastructure, maybe we need more 
performance standards, but less--all of us to be less 
ideologically driven about delivering the infrastructure and 
the support system to two-income households, to single parent 
households who are under a lot of stress everywhere in this 
country, and an area like I represent in the San Francisco Bay 
Area where housing costs are so difficult, but our 
transportation costs are so difficult because people have to 
spend a lot of time commuting as we see commutes starting to go 
back up as gratefully we get out of COVID.
    So, if any of you wanted to comment on that. Could we 
change the conversation maybe Mr. Scott and the Ranking Member, 
we could try to change that conversation about the appropriate 
role to help a very different social model where we've got two 
incomes in households driving a long way, changing careers 
often, as we look at traditional transportation infrastructure 
there clearly needs to be more, and public education is part of 
that.
    And if we can make public education perform better and be 
more client-driven, the client being the individual student and 
their families, let's all focus on that. So, Mr. Chairman I 
look forward to the discussion. If any of the panelists want to 
respond to that observation, I'd like to have their insights.
    Mr. Lanter. Thank you. I'd like to respond. Thanks 
Congressman DeSaulnier. It's really nice to see you back in 
action. You know your words I think are critically--should be 
critically listened to because you know I think we have really 
realized that the workforce development services are needed in 
this country by millions of individuals.
    And it sounds cliche to say that there's just not enough 
funding and workforce development, but our system public 
workforce development was built in a time where our economy was 
humming along. We had very low unemployment, and individuals 
weren't really struggling to find work except those that we 
serve in the public workforce system.
    Those kind of that you mentioned Mark and painted a picture 
of that are struggling to make ends meet. And I think we 
realize now today that the interventions that are needed are 
going to come at a cost.
    And these services need to be funded not only to workforce 
boards, but the network of workforce stakeholders, and that 
they really need to think innovative about how to expand access 
to services more, so that we don't think about brick and mortar 
as infrastructure, but we think about access and equity as 
infrastructure. That's what I will say to that thank you.
    Mr. DeSaulnier. Since my time's almost up Mr. Chairman, the 
definition of infrastructure is the capital infrastructure, but 
also the organizational infrastructure that goes to support 
productive workers from my perspective, and people who are 
struggling to be productive workers.
    So, I look forward to having this discussion when we're 
back together with the Ranking Member and some of my colleagues 
across the aisle, because I think it's a good one. Thank you 
Mr. Scott I yield back.
    Chairman Scott. Thank you. The next Member to be recognized 
is my distinguished colleague from Virginia, Mr. Goode.
    Mr. Goode. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thank you to all of 
our guests. Doctor McCluskey this discussion is a continuation 
of the democratic philosophy that No. 1, more money is the 
answer to everything. Two, the Federal Government should be 
intimately involved in every aspect of our lives, and three, 
it's the responsibility of the Federal Government to provide 
womb to the tomb care for its citizens.
    The fact is many American families sacrifice from one 
parent to provide the ideal at-home care for young children. 
And my wife and I actually did this as a young, lower middle-
class family many years ago.
    Why should these families be penalized and taxed to fund 
those who are making other choices? Furthermore, why are we 
incentivizing and subsidizing single parenting versus the ideal 
two parent family structure? And what's the evidence for the 
results achieved to justify the trillions we've invested in K 
to 12 and higher education?
    And as with higher education, would not greater Federal 
spending on childcare serve to drive up our costs? So, Dr. 
McCluskey if you could please comment further on the 
Constitutional justification with the Federal Government being 
involved in providing childcare, and the demonstrated 
connection, demonstrated connection between more Federal 
spending and better outcomes in terms of cost and quality.
    Mr. McCluskey. Sure. Well so again the Constitution doesn't 
authorize Federal spending on education, and it's important to 
understand that the Federal Government is supposed to be 
limited to specific and numerate powers.
    But as sort of an impact, a policy impact, what we see in 
higher education, and what we see in K through 12 is that more 
money doesn't seem to correlate with the commensurate 
improvements on outcomes. Sometimes they are negative outcomes.
    And I do think it's important that we understand that 
there's been mention of well it is pre-K, early childhood, can 
those programs be damaging? And in fact, there is research that 
suggests it can be. That the best place for a child, if 
possible, is that they are you know with one parent all the 
time, and that we don't have them in a childcare situation.
    Now obviously, some people will need to work. And it is a 
very serious concern that we would put money into maybe in the 
hands of people to pay for childcare and that drives up the 
price of childcare.
    And it's also really important to understand that actually 
research shows that there is--very often, research has shown a 
fade out, that there are early years of some improvements, but 
that it fades out over time to the point where for instance, 
Head Start ends up not making a difference.
    And some of those long-term studies that are often cited 
were of two very specific programs, Abecedarian and the Peri 
pre-school--hyper intensive, treated only about 57 kids each. 
So, I don't think when I look at the early childhood research 
that it is sort of a homerun showing that we know it works.
    In fact, once you dig into it, it gets pretty murky and one 
of the things we see regularly is a fade out problem.
    Mr. Goode. Yes. Thank you, sir. And I want to direct my 
next question to Mr. Riedl. As you mentioned the Davis Bacon 
Act is incredibly wasteful, drives up costs by billions of 
dollars, and it is in fact a holdover from the Jim Crow era and 
was enacted in 1931 solely to disadvantage minority 
contractors.
    That's why I introduced H.R. 2218 the Davis Bacon Repeal 
Act, unfortunately had no democrat cosponsors. Mr. Riedl can 
you please comment further on the increased costs from Davis 
Bacon, how it represents favoritism for the small percentage of 
unionized workers in the construction industry, and how much we 
would save from its repeal?
    Mr. Riedl. Yes. I mean if we want our infrastructure dollar 
to go further, you can't have a policy that raises wage costs 
by 22 percent, the overall cost of construction by 9 percent. 
And also, it costs jobs. We could add 155,000 construction jobs 
for the same cost by repealing Davis Bacon, 155,000.
    It's also terribly designed. Most of the formulas to 
determine the prevailing wage in most regions haven't been 
updated since the 1970's, so in some places like New York, you 
have to pay double the market wage. In other places the Davis 
Bacon is lower than the minimum wage.
    So, I'll give another example, at GAO investigation found 
that the formulas for determining the prevailing wage were 
wrong in 100 percent of localities sampled. So, it's an out of 
date, poorly run program that hikes wages 22 percent and raises 
costs by 10 percent.
    We could save about 12 to 15 billion dollars by pulling 
this program back, and you'd still be paying good construction 
wages for good construction work. This should be a no brainer 
to be more productive.
    Mr. Goode. Thank you, Mr. Riedl, thank you Dr. McCluskey 
and I yield back my time Chairman.
    Chairman Scott. Thank you. The gentlelady from Washington 
Ms. Jayapal.
    Ms. Jayapal. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. This is exciting to 
be talking about the Build Back Better Plans of the President. 
And let me just remind my colleagues that the 2 trillion-dollar 
infrastructure proposal, the President's proposal had enjoyed 
68 percent support across the country.
    The upcoming plan, the Families Plan enjoys 65 percent 
support. So, these are intensely popular. People want the 
government to be involved in helping to build their lives and 
to build their opportunity. I just want to start by adding a 
personal welcome to President Mitsui.
    We were so sorry to lose you from Seattle, but it's 
wonderful to have to still not so far away and bringing your 
voice to this forum. As you may remember it was 2016 when I 
first introduced the Washington Promise into the State Senate 
to make community college free for everyone in our State, and 
how great it is that we see that proposal in the President's 
Family Plan even as we do more to cancel student debt and 
address 4 years colleges as well.
    If we want a successful job's bill that creates union jobs 
with living wages, we have to include in the same single 
package this comprehensive support for families, including 
support for working parents, domestic workers, paid leave, as 
well as real reforms to healthcare.
    Today I want to focus my questioning on just two pieces 
that I've been focusing a lot on regarding childcare. And the 
first is that we do not put up unnecessary barriers in the way 
with onerous work requirements, and that we ensure that we 
expand the income threshold cap to include the wide swath of 
middle-class folks who also need these benefits.
    So Mr. Malik, it's good to see you. Let me start with you. 
Childcare is essential infrastructure but work requirements do 
impose unnecessary restrictions on access. The requirements on 
subsidies are arbitrary. They vary in both definition and 
enforcement State to State, and according to recent CRS 
estimates if we expand the childcare subsidies with work 
requirements in place, it would automatically exclude half of 
children under 75 percent of State median income.
    In your article from last year you wrote that women, 
especially women of color, face higher unemployment rates and 
racial discrimination and hiring, and yet need to access 
childcare in order to remain in the labor force.
    Would you say that work requirements can be unfair barriers 
to otherwise qualified families, even applying for, or 
accessing childcare? You can just give me a short yes or no 
answer.
    Mr. Malik. Yes, thank you Congresswoman. Yes, just simple 
work requirements are not really the way to effectively connect 
families with what they need in terms of childcare.
    Ms. Jayapal. Thank you so much. And in your testimony you 
had said that child care access needs to come before people can 
start looking for work, so if we were to remove work 
requirements, don't you think it would help the neediest of 
families access child care?
    Mr. Malik. I mean I think from what I've looked at with the 
Child Care for Working Families Act, what it does really 
importantly in this new version is it makes--expands the 
entitlement to people looking for jobs which kind of removes 
that friction from I'm out of work, I'm looking for work, I'm 
getting back into work.
    And really it has in the current status quo eject families 
out of the childcare system that they need. It also though 
expands to parents seeking education. There are more than four 
and a half million student parents who really, really need 
childcare in order to continue and to complete that educational 
framing, as well as you know when there's these other 
provisions in there.
    So I'm encouraged. I think that ultimately getting to 
universal coverage is where we want to get to. And this gets us 
a big part of the way there.
    Ms. Jayapal. Thanks Mr. Malik. I agree there is some 
important provisions that help us expand. My concern is that 
working parents are already struggling to come up with 
thousands of dollars, and you know I think the CRS estimates 
that half of children from low and middle-income families would 
be left out is very troublesome.
    I want to call to people's attention the work that's been 
done on scarcity. Research and behavioral science has 
consistently shown that work requirements are very tough and 
small hassles can have a disproportionately large impact on 
whether and how people complete any process.
    So just for us to be successful with these benefits that 
care is so essential to families across the country, we need to 
minimize the hassle and complexity and not have enormous forms 
and administrative costs that come from administering those 
complex work requirements.
    Let me just quickly spend a minute on actually I have even 
less than that, just on the cap. You know the Family Child Care 
expenses are 47 percent higher now than it was before the 
pandemic. In Washington State on average, Washington households 
are already spending 14 percent of their income on childcare.
    And middle-class families, especially those in my district 
whose median income exceeds the State level by 50 percent. In 
districts that are housing poor, where people are spending up 
to 50 percent of their income on housing, they're really 
feeling this blow.
    And so I'm hoping that as we move forward with this bill we 
can make sure to expand the income cap because as costs 
continue to rise I think we need to stick to the HHS 
recommendation in 2016 that no families spend more than 7 
percent of their income on child care. We don't want to exclude 
some very critical families at the middle-income range, 
particularly in our income you know, high income families.
    So thank you so much for that testimony today, and Mr. 
Chairman thank you for your leadership on all these bills. 
Important hearing. I yield back.
    Chairman Scott. Thank you. The gentlelady from Tennessee 
Ms. Harshbarger. Gentlelady is still on mute.
    Mrs. Harshbarger. So sorry, can you hear me now? Are you 
good? OK. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Ranking Member Foxx and 
all the witnesses. I had a story similar to Dr. Miller-Meeks. I 
was the first one to graduate from college and then went on and 
got a post-doctorate degree. My parents never graduated from 
high school.
    You know I've worked full-time. I went to school full-time. 
And I raised a family full-time, and I paid every bit, every 
loan that I had back until they were completely paid, so it can 
be done. And that just strengthened my character as a matter of 
fact where I could become a freshman Member in Congress and 
take on the world it looks like.
    But this is for Mr.--Dr. McCluskey. Canceling the student 
debt hasn't been mentioned in the infrastructure package, but 
that doesn't mean that it may not be included in the 
legislation when the text is passed. Let me ask you a question. 
Would canceling the student debt fix the underlying problems 
that lead students to borrow over 1.5 trillion to fund post-
secondary education sir?
    Mr. McCluskey. The only thing I think, and thanks for your 
question, I think canceling would increase the willingness of 
people to take out debt, and more debt to pay for higher 
education because the assumption would be well I can take on 
this debt.
    And just as we just saw I won't actually have to pay it 
back. And so why not take more? Why not go to a more expensive 
school that may have you know, the nicer food, the nicer 
buildings, the lazy rivers. And so if anything, it would 
exacerbate the problem to say you know I'll take on the debt. 
There's a good expectation it will be forgiven.
    Mrs. Harshbarger. Yes. Well the second question is what 
could Congress do to create space for the private marketplace 
to re-enter the higher education sector and how would that 
benefit students?
    Mr. McCluskey. Sure. So the Federal Government is by far 
the biggest lender in higher education. It's like 90 percent of 
the market or more. And that means it's crowded out lots of 
private lenders. The Federal Government should begin to reduce 
how heavily involved it is in student lending. You might start 
with the PLUS loans. There's parent PLUS loan, graduate PLUS 
loans, but they are not targeted at all toward low-income 
families who are the ones who need the most help.
    So you start by reducing all those programs that funnel 
money to people who clearly do not need the assistance in order 
to pay for college. But that is, you know, it's counter 
intuitive, but that's how we turned rationality--not just to 
college pricing, which is incredibly inflated prices, but to 
college consumption where we no longer have our thumb on the 
scale saying you should all go get a four-year credential, 
whether it represents actual learning or not because we're 
going to give you the money to do it.
    We want people to do it as efficient and as effective an 
education as they can get, not just another piece of paper.
    Mrs. Harshbarger. Absolutely. Well you know you have those 
loans too you're going to do your best to make a good grade, 
get out and get a good job. And this next question, thank you 
sir, is for Mr. Riedl. Let's stay along those lines sir and say 
that Congress were to pass legislation canceling that student 
loan debt.
    Is there any evidence to suggest this possibly would act as 
a stimulus to the economy?
    Mr. Riedl. It would not be a stimulus to the economy at all 
for three reasons. First, the 1.5 trillion dollars in benefits 
for borrowers would be off-set by lenders receiving 1.5 
trillion dollars less in repayments that now cannot be spent or 
lent out.
    So it's a zero transfer from one group to another. Second, 
any benefits to the borrowers were to accrue gradually over the 
life of the repayment period. It's not like you get a huge cash 
windfall at your door for the amount of your loan.
    And third, student loan forgiveness we have not determined 
this for sure, but student loan forgiveness may be taxable as 
income, meaning that if you get $50,000.00 forgiven, you may 
get a tax bill having to pay taxes on that $50,000.00 
immediately in the current year which would mean it actually 
hurts the short-term economy.
    So in that way it's certainly at best it's not a stimulus. 
In worse, depending on tax law it could be harmful.
    Mrs. Harshbarger. Well one last question. Who would benefit 
the most from the Federal Government wiping that debt away?
    Mr. Riedl. According to the Urban Institute, 544 billion 
dollars in benefits would go to the highest earning quarter of 
people and only 192 billion would go to the bottom earning 
quarter of earners. And that's because half of all student loan 
debt is held by graduate degrees, doctors, lawyers, MBA's, 
that's who benefits.
    Mrs. Harshbarger. Yes. Thank you, sir. I yield back.
    Chairman Scott. Thank you. The gentlelady from Connecticut, 
gentlelady from Connecticut Mrs. Hayes.
    Mrs. Hayes. Thank you, Mr. Chair, for holding this hearing 
today. The communities hardest hit by COVID are also the 
communities that have schools in the worst physical condition. 
A 2014 study by the U.S. Department of Education estimated that 
it would cost 197 billion to bring all public schools into good 
condition.
    It's been 7 years since that study. Ms. Filardo does your 
current research show any data about the cost it would take 
today to bring schools into good condition?
    Ms. Filardo. Yes. Thank you for the question. It's a little 
bit tricky because there is not a national data base, or 
there's not really great data on some of this. What we know is 
what it takes to keep schools in good repair. And it takes 
about 100 billion dollars a year.
    And we know we've been spending about 50 billion a year, so 
we're running a deficit of about 50 billion a year. So you 
could do the math, in 10 years you're at a trillion-dollar 
deficit.
    Mrs. Hayes. Well thank you. I don't have any scientific 
evidence, but if only 3 percent of our schools were in 
disrepair, they must have all been in my school district. In 15 
years I can tell you that we've had so many buildings with 
problems.
    So I can tell you from first-hand knowledge that many of 
our schools are in desperate need of attention and we need to 
revisit. I mean it's over a decade and this pandemic has only 
further exacerbated these problems and shown us how the air 
quality, the physical space, mold, mildew, things that we've 
talked about how it's so critical that we address these issues, 
so thank you.
    We've also seen not just in the physical infrastructure, 
but gaps in our childcare system. We couldn't reopen the 
economy without thinking about how our children would be taken 
care of. And I would be remiss as a classroom educator if I 
didn't comment on the fact that I know for sure that children 
benefit from preschool.
    We can disagree on what that looks like. We can disagree on 
how it's paid for. But in this Committee, I want the record to 
reflect that Congresswoman Hayes does not believe that 
preschool is counterproductive.
    Mr. Malik according to Professor Taryn Morrisey at American 
University, on average the early care and education settings 
attended by many young children, particularly low-income 
children, or children of color, provide quality at levels too 
low to adequately promote children's learning and development.
    My question for you is how does a parent identify what is 
high-quality in a childcare system? And then what affects does 
the lack of high-quality childcare have for children, 
communities, and our country?
    Mr. Malik. Thank you, Congresswoman, that's a very good 
question. And unfortunately, right now it's very hard for 
parents to get all the information that they need on what 
programs are high-quality, what quality does indeed look like, 
what the future of that program that they're enrolling their 
child or children in may be.
    Because childcare programs have high turnover, have severe 
challenges in you know emergency situations such as pandemics, 
are very vulnerable to drops in enrollment and don't get the 
adequate funding that they need.
    Now the second part of your question I'm sorry if you could 
repeat.
    Mrs. Hayes. What effects does the lack of high-quality 
childcare for children have on communities and our country?
    Mr. Malik. Yes, yes, so you know the quality comes from the 
trained professional, hard-working workforce of more than 90 
percent women, disproportionately women of color who have 
operated this industry on a shoestring budget for decades. And 
I just want to State here that this year they worked through 
this pandemic to serve all of the essential workers, the front-
line healthcare workers.
    They were there when we needed them. They deserve an 
investment in the work that they have provided to our families 
and to the children that they have taught through the years. 
And those quality investments pay for themselves many times 
over, in terms of not just the educational outcomes, but the 
social and economic outcomes for children, and for as I've said 
before, the security of those family units.
    Mrs. Hayes. Thank you. I'll just close by saying educating 
my children doesn't only help my family, it helps your family, 
and it helps our community. It is a public good, and Mr. Chair 
with that I yield back.
    Chairman Scott. Thank you. Next the gentlelady from 
Illinois Ms. Miller. The young lady from Illinois Ms. Miller?
    Mr. Levin. You've got to unmute.
    Mrs. Miller. I would like to thank all of our witnesses for 
their testimonies. As the mother of seven and as an educator 
that has spent time in public, private and home school 
educational situations, school is very dear to my heart, and 
strengthening our families also.
    I believe that every child deserves a high-quality 
education that meets our unique needs and gifts. I also believe 
that it's best handled at the local level. As we consider 
proposals related through K through 12 education, I hope that 
we consider how to keep D.C. bureaucrats out of the classroom, 
and instead empower State and local educational officials to 
improve their schools.
    So my question is for Dr. McCluskey. You demonstrated that 
pumping more money into our current K through 12 system hasn't 
done much to improve our math and reading scores. I share your 
doubts about being able to spend our way to better education.
    What reforms do you think would be effective in improving 
academic outcomes for American students?
    Mr. McCluskey. Thanks. I mean the No. 1 reform is we need 
school choice. We need to fundamentally change how we deliver K 
through 12 education from a model where we fund--the government 
funds the schools, and you are essentially assigned to a 
school, we've moved away from that somewhat, but that's still 
the norm.
    To a model where the money follows the student to the 
school, where the other educational arrangement, you know now 
we have pandemic pods, we have home schooling, we have lots of 
other options. But it follows to what works best for that 
family and for those children because all children are 
different. But that should not be a Federal thing, other than 
in Washington, DC.
    Certainly, for people in the military you can deliver 
school choice, otherwise it should be State and local, and the 
job of the Federal Government should be to stay out of the way, 
not to put rules and regulations on how K through 12 education 
functions.
    Mrs. Miller. And I have another comment. So you know I have 
the seven children, and we encourage them to seek merit 
scholarships and/or to work. So they either work part-time or 
full-time their entire way through school, but I have to say 
that we observed because we had close relationships with some 
of our children's friends, that my children's peers that 
received free school were the ones in our experience, that 
didn't graduate.
    They were the ones that moved out of their homes. They 
upgraded their vehicles, and they spent their time partying and 
flunked out. And so my question to you Dr. McCluskey is so many 
of these people that are getting full tuition assistance end up 
dropping out.
    It turns out that only 60 percent of those that enroll in 
bachelor programs have completed their degrees 6 years after 
enrollment. Dr. McCluskey what do you make of our abysmal 6-
year graduation rates, and do you think free college proposals 
would have any effect on graduation rates?
    Mr. McCluskey. Well there's certainly a problem when 
someone, when you're consuming something, where you're going to 
college using money that comes from somebody else, and 
typically not somebody you know, so it's not family. You are 
less incentivized to finish, and to finish as quickly and as 
efficiently as possible.
    So there's I think little question that the existence of 
subsidies have incentivized people to do a lot of other things 
in college, then focus on completing a program as quickly as 
possible in an area that's in demand.
    But there is another problem to this which is that it has 
made it expensive, much more expensive than education should 
be, so there are certainly people who do have to work because 
the price that they are presented with is so high, and it's so 
high because it's been artificially inflated by student aid.
    So now rather when the problem is that you're not 
incentivizing people to get education as efficiently as 
possible, and to complete it, or that the price has become so 
high it's very difficult for some people to afford, it's that 
aid that's at the root of those problems.
    Mrs. Miller. Yes and Dr. McCluskey you've pointed out that 
many issues with the free college proposals, but you rightly 
acknowledge that college tuition costs are out of control. Can 
you recommend any policy proposals for the Committee that would 
reduce the cost of higher education without the unintended 
consequences of free college?
    Mr. McCluskey. Right. So instead of saying we make it free, 
we reduce those subsidies that the student aid program, 
especially those student loan programs that aren't well 
targeted. Start with those. I think the parent PLUS loan and 
the grad PLUS loan in particular, are good places to begin to 
add rationality to consumption and pricing by saying we're not 
going to provide money to the people who don't need it. Let's 
at least focus our aid on those who do need it.
    Mrs. Miller. And I do have to add if I may, that the 
experience of my children having to work and go to school at 
the same time did keep them out of some of the traditional 
landmines that college students fall into, and gave them 
experience in the workforce while they were going to school.
    So that's very valuable too and I don't think it should be 
discounted. And I don't think we should look at it as all bad, 
people have to scramble and work, or even be concerned about 
what they're going to eat or where they're going to live, 
because that's part of entering into adulthood. And I yield 
back my time.
    Chairman Scott. Thank you. The gentlelady's time has 
expired. The gentleman from Michigan Mr. Levin.
    Mr. Levin. Thank you so much Mr. Chairman for convening 
this important hearing today and thanks for the witnesses. I 
can't begin to count how many priorities I'm excited to work to 
include in President Biden's Infrastructure and Jobs Plan.
    But I want to take a moment first to focus on the idea of 
tuition-free community college which bears little relationship 
to some of what I've been hearing here. As a former Chief 
Workforce Officer for my home State of Michigan, I created a 
free community college program called No Worker Left Behind, 
and we put 162,000 un and underemployed workers back to school. 
And we had waiting lists in every one of Michigan's 83 
counties.
    And now recently my Governor Gretchen Whitmer created a 
tuition free benefit for front line workers who have kept our 
country running during the pandemic. But there's an important 
difference between the proposals before us today including the 
America's College Promise Act that I introduced yesterday with 
you Chairman Scott, and many of the recently created State 
level programs.
    Unlike many state-run programs, America's College Promise 
would provide what's called a first dollar benefit, meaning 
that benefits are not reduced when a student receives other 
financial aid like the Pell grant. So President Mitsui let me 
ask you this, can you talk about how this type of first dollar 
structure helps to ensure that students can use other financial 
aid to cover basic needs?
    What would it mean for their ability to stay enrolled and 
complete a degree which many people have you know talked about 
today?
    Mr. Mitsui. It is vitally important. Thank you, Congressman 
Levin, for the question. As I mentioned earlier, and as 
research points out two-thirds of our students in the community 
colleges struggle with basic needs insecurity.
    And you know I do want to point out that the survey that we 
conducted at Portland Community College, almost 19 percent of 
respondents indicated experience with houselessness.
    Mr. Levin. Yes.
    Mr. Mitsui. And this is not a rite of passage. This is 
living in a car. This is couch surfing or living in a tent. Not 
being housed. Out in the cold during the winter and trying to 
study and trying to complete school.
    Mr. Levin. So in other words if we cover their tuition and 
books or whatever, then they would really need the money to be 
able to live. So I just think that that's so important. Let me 
turn quickly to Mr. Lanter. It's good to see you too.
    I'm worried about the 4.2 million Americans who are long-
term unemployed, especially given the additional challenges 
these workers face re-entering the labor market right now. The 
American Jobs Plan calls for new dislocated worker program and 
a subsidized job program for the long-term unemployed and 
underemployed.
    Our Committee is considering ways to expand dislocated 
worker supports through WIOA and last week I introduced a 
bicameral bill with Senator Chris Van Hollen to create a 
targeted subsidized job program for long-term unemployed 
workers. So from your experience in California, what additional 
supports do you think long-term unemployed individuals need to 
reenter the workforce successfully?
    Mr. Lanter. Yes. Thank you, Congressman. Great question 
it's nice to see you. Look in my almost 30-year career working 
in the front lines of the public workforce development system 
there are fewer people served by our system that are more 
challenged than the dislocated worker.
    Often long work history and coupled with a lack of 
reskilling over time is a recipe for long-term unemployment. So 
you asked what can we do. Well look, our Nation's retraining 
system must allow these laid off workers to not only receive 
education but receive the necessary supports that we were just 
talking about that will help them complete the education and 
obtain employment.
    In California we've started a critical program called 
Breaking Barriers where we use 25 million dollars of general 
fund money for partnerships between community-based 
organization and workforce boards to enable the most vulnerable 
populations to receive the supports and have their remedial 
education necessary to complete their programs. That's the type 
of expansion we need.
    Mr. Levin. That sounds outstanding. All right. Well before 
I yield back Mr. Chairman, I want to highlight the importance 
of the Build America's Libraries Act. You know I'm all about 
the libraries, and the Reopen and Rebuild America's School Act.
    I'm a proud advocate for investing in our school and 
library infrastructure, and I look forward to working with you 
to ensure they're both included in the American Jobs Plan. We 
need to create great union jobs rebuilding our infrastructure 
so that our kids and our communities have safe spaces to learn 
and grow. Thanks Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
    Mr. Sablan. Mr. Levin this is Sablan. Could you add me on 
to your Build Library Act?
    Mr. Levin. Yes sir. You've got it.
    Chairman Scott. No problem. Next Member we recognize is the 
gentlelady from Indiana, Ms. Spartz.
    Ms. Spartz. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Members of the 
Committee. It's a very good discussion. You know someone who 
went through a lot of education, worked on education Committee 
in the State senate in Indiana, I would have a lot of 
discussion, we have lots of problems.
    So I'll make a comment and then I have a quick question. 
You know my observation within our educational system is really 
broken and it creates with a lot of incentives that's 
happening, with low outcomes. We're not ready for life-long 
learning, and now that you know the pace of change is getting 
stronger, faster and faster, and we calculated in our State of 
Indiana less than half of the money goes to classroom, and I 
think putting more money in fancy buildings is not going to 
improve education.
    I went to a pretty bad building. Wouldn't you know it back 
in Ukraine and had very good education. My father-in-law 
studied in one class, one room class, one room school, and he 
became very successful. Like we can spend a lot of money on 
education, buildings, but that's not what the quality of 
education. It's not going to get kids better and ready for this 
very difficult world with a lot of changes.
    And if you look at our country spends pretty much almost 
the most per child on education, and in a lot of areas. We have 
like somewhere a tenth, twentieth, and now it's common where we 
are. So I think it's unacceptable, it's very disturbing and 
it's very bad.
    So my question is how we can--and maybe I'll ask Mr. 
McCluskey because Cato Institute is sometimes more like a 
libertarian. It can find a common ground between republicans 
and democrats and some criminal justices for example. Because 
we're having discussions and debate, we talk about it, we all 
understand that something has to change, but we'll never come 
up with any solution if we actually don't look at restructuring 
the system.
    How we can provide fundamental skills in a better way, 
eliminate perverse incentive, have more skin in the game for 
institutions of learning, and get our kids ready for life-long 
learning. We have the whole world to compete, and our kids are 
not ready.
    So I don't know Mr. McCluskey, do you have any observations 
and thoughts or any policy that we actually could agree on and 
move forward, not just continue debating.
    Mr. McCluskey. Sure. Thanks for the question and thanks for 
saying that. Maybe be able to bring democrats and republicans 
together. I'm going to try the best I can do here. The first 
thing I'd say is I do think that there may be a chance if a lot 
of the people look at the PLUS loans, parent PLUS and grad 
PLUS. That may be an area that a lot of people could agree.
    This is very poorly targeted aid, and the less well we 
target the higher education aid to those who need it most to 
lower income families, the worse we make this price inflation 
problem. So maybe in higher education that is a place where 
people can start looking at some of those programs that are not 
well targeted.
    And another area I think that there may be a--where we 
could get widespread agreement, not necessarily do I think it 
should be Federal, but is at apprenticeships. But 
apprenticeships where we start with school choice at the K 
through 12 level, where we don't sort of constantly push people 
and say really if you want to be a full you know, person that 
everybody will respect, you have to get a four-year degree.
    I think it's terrible how much we emphasize four-year 
degrees, but we also don't want to track people, and track 
students against their will. So we see charter schools for 
instance that do work toward apprenticeships, where people who 
want to learn, you know really valuable skills that aren't 
necessarily done in the college classroom, where they can 
choose that early on.
    And I think that's somewhere that a lot of people could 
agree is let's make those kinds of apprenticeships, something 
that's a much more viable easy to access option for people 
while maybe they're still in high school.
    Ms. Spartz. Right. And I think we're working the State of 
Indiana. And ultimately, it's not about four-year degree. You 
can actually attain your bachelor's degree much faster. You can 
you know I mean in 10 years you can really get you know primary 
education. Your secondary and post-secondary education could be 
done at high school.
    And you can actually already have an associate degree. I 
had my master's degree in 15 years, back in Ukraine, and here 
for 13 years you're still in school. You know, so I think it 
could be done faster, and maybe looking at how we can 
integrate.
    And I don't know if you ever look to integrate some of 
these technical skills and maybe some degrees that some people 
just want to have a piece of paper, although that really 
doesn't matter. But at least they can get a piece of paper 
faster and get done and get to work and be a productive Member, 
maybe get another one.
    But I appreciate if you have any other ideas please reach 
out and I yield back, thank you.
    Chairman Scott. Thank you. The gentlelady from North 
Carolina Ms. Manning.
    Ms. Manning. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I do represent 
Gilford County, North Carolina. We recently had an outside 
evaluation done on what it would cost to do the necessary 
repairs and upgrades through our K through 12 schools, and the 
cost was in excess of 2 billion dollars.
    Ms. Filardo school districts can you coded relief funds for 
school facility repairs and improvements, thank goodness. In 
your testimony you reference a letter from a National Council 
on School Facilities that recommends school districts use 15 
percent of funds to meet CDC requirements and reduce deferred 
maintenance of their facilities.
    Can you describe the need that remains beyond just my 
community, and how the Reopen and Rebuild America's Schools Act 
can build on this investment for schools across the country, 
not just North Carolina?
    Ms. Filardo. Yes, thank you. I know there's some confusion 
about sort of that maybe the money there is there to solve all 
the problems of our crumbling schools. And there's no question 
that if we actually took 15 percent, that there could be some 
progress made against deferred maintenance.
    But I calculated it for about 12 states that had given me 
their most recent data, and it's still about 3 percent. If they 
got the 15 percent for schools, it was about 3 percent of their 
need. I mean I think one of the things that's really hard for 
people to appreciate is that the scale of this infrastructure 
is really enormous and complex.
    We really operate industrial sized operations when you're 
talking about high schools and middle schools with you know 
complex mechanical systems, and you know, heating plants of you 
know all different sorts that are used on buildings that may be 
half a million square feet.
    So it's fantastic what we're getting from the Rescue Plan 
for our school districts, but it just in no way makes progress 
against the really long-term issues that we're facing for 
resilient schools, for energy efficient schools, for you know 
schools that we really need to meet the workforce and early 
childhood requirements that we know are a part of the 
responsibilities of our communities.
    Ms. Manning. Thank you so much. Mr. Lanter as I've been 
meeting with people from across my district, I have been 
hearing from a lot of the businesses in my State that they're 
having trouble finding a supply of qualified workers. Amid the 
COVID-19 pandemic, but even before that.
    For many the ability to hire trained and qualified workers 
has been a long-standing challenge that was simply exacerbated 
by the pandemic. Can you help explain the investments in the 
Federal workforce system made through the American Jobs Plan 
and how those could address the long-term workforce challenges 
that I am hearing about and help us improve equity in our labor 
markets?
    Mr. Lanter. Yes. Thank you, Congresswoman, excellent 
question. And you know you're absolutely right. The skills 
mismatch, and our country has been around long before the 
pandemic. You know the thing about it is the pandemic is only 
going to exasperate the challenges that individuals in our 
country had faced as we were going into the pandemic. And I 
think you know the skills mismatch really is at the heart of 
everything we're talking about today.
    We have employers that are struggling to find talent and 
struggling to find individuals. And we have individuals who 
cannot see the path to those jobs. And this is where the 
America's Job Plan really helps. It can enable us to really 
retool the workforce development system.
    This is the place for that retooled sector strategy. In 
California we've launched over 50 sector partnerships that 
bring industry, labor, workforce, and community-based 
organizations to the table. And you know what's really 
important about these partnerships is that it's driven by the 
demand of industry, and they're convened all over the State by 
intermediaries, by organizations who understand the challenge 
in these industries.
    And more important, understand that job quality is more 
than just wages. For individuals that you're talking about 
Congresswoman, we're talking about set schedules. We're talking 
about career pathways. We're talking about childcare and 
benefits.
    So these partnerships can really help. The America's Job 
Plan can fund industry sector partnerships across the country 
that are industry-led, where partnership is a priority, for 
long-term sustainability in an industry where worker voice is 
incorporated so that we can ensure quality jobs beyond wages, 
thank you.
    Ms. Manning. Thank you and I yield back.
    Chairman Scott. Thank you. Thank you. The gentleman from 
Wisconsin, Mr. Fitzgerald.
    Mr. Fitzgerald. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Interesting 
discussion, especially I think my perspective as a former State 
legislator. I'll just say I mean my position is still to 
decentralize education, allow the Governors of our states, and 
the State legislatures and the school boards, the school 
boards, handle the vast majority of these issues.
    Everything from curriculum to infrastructure. In Wisconsin 
if a local school district wants to rebuild the high school, 
they put the question on a referendum and let the taxpayers 
vote on it. And right now in Wisconsin over the last decade or 
so there's been a record number of referendums that have passed 
because there's been in excess of 50 percent of the people that 
vote in that school district say yes, we need a new high 
school, or no, we don't need a new high school or baseball 
field, or swimming pool, or whatever it might be.
    So it makes me nervous whenever I heard Congress stepping 
in the middle of that and saying we know better, and we can 
figure out a better way of doing this, and we're going to make 
sure that we're going to fund these things because we all know 
strings are attached and that's alarming.
    I'd also say I think it's almost insulting the way it's 
come up numerous times today that infrastructure is extended 
beyond what we would traditionally define it as. And the reason 
it's troubling I think is because you're trying to put people 
in that definition, so you're talking about teachers.
    You're talking about school staff. You're talking about 
families and you're talking about the actual students, the 
children. That's insulting to throw them in that mix and say 
this is also infrastructure. No it's not. And that's why the 
polling that you see is so wildly popular is because it's got 
to be that the people that are being polled are saying you know 
we know what infrastructure is, an infrastructure is bricks and 
mortar, it's roads, it's bridges.
    And if you try and redefine it like I know is going on 
right now, you know you're undermining people that they make a 
difference in our educational system. I just want to talk a 
little bit about and Congressman Goode talked about this a 
little bit too Bacon Davis.
    But Mr. Riedl I was going to ask you the question on 
project labor agreements. It kind of falls under the same area 
as Bacon Davis, but you know certainly every dollar spent on 
schools, whether it is done at the local level, or whether it's 
some type of Federal money that might make its way down to a 
school district.
    You know a lot of times these PLA's they eat away at the 
amount of revenue that's actually available to finish a 
project, and you know in Wisconsin we did away with project 
labor agreements, and especially when it comes to any of the 
municipal projects going on, and it's really helped us a lot. I 
was wondering if you had a comment on that?
    Mr. Riedl. Sure thank you Congressman. And I'll say that 
when I was in Wisconsin building on your point, we built 
Appleton North High School when I was in high school without 
any Federal help. It was decided locally, and they built it and 
it's a great high school and, so I agree with that.
    Project labor agreements absolutely raise costs. They have 
been shown to raise school construction costs by anywhere from 
13 to 30 percent in various states. And so you know money is 
limited, so when you're doing these infrastructure projects you 
can do less. You can't build as big of a school, you can't 
build as nice of a school, or you can build fewer schools, 
because 13 to 30 percent is a huge increase in costs.
    Mr. Fitzgerald. Yes and I'd just say you know in the PLA's 
that sometimes are involved in some of these projects as well, 
you know they kind of push the project in a specific direction 
that otherwise you know probably wouldn't happen, and again it 
increases costs.
    So interesting discussion today, and I would yield back 
Chairman Scott.
    Chairman Scott. Thank you. Next gentlelady from New Mexico, 
Ms. Leger Fernandez.
    Ms. Leger Fernandez. Thank you so much Chairman Scott as 
well as Ranking Member Foxx for having this important hearing 
today. We're here today to talk about the actions we can take 
to strengthen our economy by creating jobs, investing in what 
we believe, and we believe in investing in our children and 
supporting families.
    But we can't do that without acknowledging disparity and 
the hardships Americans have faced right. So women in our 
country have lost a net 5.4 million jobs during the pandemic. 
Nearly 1 million more job losses than men. Women of color were 
hit the hardest.
    Mr. Malik I was a Head Start baby, which is where I fell in 
love with learning, and appreciate your testimony about the 
importance of funding quality early child care, both to improve 
women's ability to return to the workforce, but also to invest 
in our children because we know that is how we create a future 
for our communities.
    But when I meet with constituents they tell me that the 
lack of affordable, reliable child care holds then back, 
especially moms from accepting well-paying jobs, and becoming 
financially independent, and they want their children to be in 
those quality early child care situations that has been talked 
about today.
    We also know that poor families don't always participate in 
programs like the free school lunches if the application 
process is difficult. So my question is what can we do in 
Congress to make sure that all families can access early 
childcare, including the poorest who might not be comfortable 
with complicated application processes?
    And how can we make sure that families don't pay more than 
7 percent of their income on childcare?
    Mr. Malik. Thank you for that question Congresswoman. I 
think we absolutely need to expand our investment in early 
childhood education as a public and consider all of the 
spillover benefits that we accrue throughout the K through 12 
system and throughout society.
    Those are well-documented. You know and I think we also 
have to prioritize making sure that low-income families are the 
target population that we want to make sure gains access to 
these programs. Now that might you know, a lot of that is the 
devil is in the details there, and I think that the Child Care 
for Working Families Act that we have now, the new version 
that's just come out.
    I want to note that there's a whole slew of eligibility 
categories that are aiming for the greatest hiccup to try and 
really make sure that families who have been left out of the 
system are brought in first, and that those dollars prioritize 
low-income, middle class families for whom child care is an 
economic necessity, but one that has just been too far out of 
reach.
    Now in terms of capping the amount spent on childcare, I 
think right now there is this 7 percent number. Of course that 
HHS set as kind of the ceiling for affordability. The only 
families that are spending 7 percent on quality childcare right 
now are really high-income families, and I've run the numbers 
on this.
    And you've got to be making six times the Federal poverty 
level, so if you're over $150,000.00 a year in family income, 
on average that group is the group that's only paying 7 
percent. Everybody else is at 20 percent, 15 percent, 10 
percent of their gross income spending on childcare among 
working families that are paying for it right now.
    So I think the way that the bill is structured we're 
talking about making it free for low-income families, capping 
it at 2 percent for those who are making the State medium 
income.
    Ms. Leger Fernandez. Thank you, Mr. Malik. I did want to 
get a quick question in with regards to the funding of school 
construction. And so, Ms. Filardo I think I wanted to see if 
you could talk quickly about the benefits that new school 
construction can have in addressing not just the need for 
schools, but schools that have access to the technology that we 
need, and that also by building schools that are more resilient 
and environmentally conscious that also attacks the other 
pandemic problem we have with regards to our global-type 
crisis, our climate crisis.
    Ms. Filardo. Yes so than different from your colleague from 
Indiana mentioned, it really does make a difference the quality 
of the environment that we're in. And we do better in better 
environments, so we are under-performing in part because of the 
environment that we're in. And that's true from an academic 
level. It's true from an energy perspective, it's true from the 
resilience perspective.
    That our schools can be more resilient. They can be more 
energy efficient. They can be healthier. And all of these 
things you know it takes money. And again to counter some of 
the other you know I think really misinterpretations of RRASA 
is it is not a takeover.
    It is really a program to strengthen the states, and their 
ability and capacity to do this. And the National Council on 
School Facilities who I work with, these fantastic State 
officials, you know, from Alabama, from Georgia, from Maine, 
from Alaska, from New Mexico, these folks are really doing some 
fabulous work, but the states need more incentives to be able 
to do more to help the local districts.
    The decisions will still be local. They'll still be done at 
the State level. This is not a program where the Federal 
Government gets in between those decisions as referendums will 
still take place.
    Ms. Leger Fernandez. Thank you, Ms. Filardo. My time has 
expired. And we will welcome additional funding in New Mexico. 
I yield back.
    Chairman Scott. Thank you. Gentlelady from California Ms. 
Steel.
    Mrs. Steel. Thank you, Chairman Scott, and thank you 
Ranking Member Doctor Foxx. Congress has increased funding for 
K to 12 schools, colleges and universities over the last 
several decades, yet student's outcomes have not improved.
    We have heard from parents who spoke to this Committee that 
the pandemic reeked-havoc on their child's education. We have 
sent teacher unions, elected officials kept classroom closed. 
We are seeing in California that parents are frustrated and 
ready for reform, in favor of more school choice.
    According to the Public Policy Institute of California in 
2020 school vouchers are very popular with parents, but 
California seems to be slow to implement new school choice and 
voucher options.
    We asked so many questions and answers since I am one of 
the last ones. So I have a simple question to Dr. McCluskey. Do 
you think that providing parents with more options for their 
children for example, charter schools, virtual school, home 
schooling and vouchers for private schools, do you think it 
would improve educational outcomes?
    Mr. McCluskey. Oh I think it definitely would improve 
educational outcomes. In fact there are 29 or so studies on the 
competitive effects of having school choice. I think it's 27 of 
those have found that the more options parents have around a 
public school the better that public school does because you 
need those incentives of people being able to take their money 
elsewhere to really focus on the outcomes that parents want.
    So the research very much supports the idea that the more 
choice there is, the better the outcomes. And of course there 
was the study that was mentioned earlier at the University of 
Arkansas that found that NAEP scores are better, they get 
higher when people have more choice in their states.
    Mrs. Steel. Thank you Dr. McCluskey. Thank you, all the 
witnesses who came today, and Chairman I yield back.
    Chairman Scott. Thank you. The gentleman from Indiana Mr. 
Mrvan.
    Mr. Mrvan. Thank you Mr. Chairman and I'd like to thank all 
the witnesses for joining us today. With that being said Mr. 
Chairman, before I ask my question, I wanted to point out that 
the Davis Bacon or prevailing wage provisions do not increase 
construction costs.
    The argument that prevailing wage laws increase 
construction costs relies on the flawed assumption that only 
the way the contractor can minimize labor costs is by paying 
workers less. This is false. In any industry an employer can 
also reduce labor costs by reducing turnover and using wages to 
attract and hire the industry's most productive of workers.
    That being said I would like to address my support for the 
Buy American provisions. I strongly believe that Buy American 
policies ensure that we are not missing out on good-paying job 
opportunities and manufacturing across a range of industries in 
our community.
    Chairman Scott's Reopen and Rebuild America's School Act 
has a strong Buy American provision, including a melted and 
poured standard for iron and steel. The melted and poured 
standard is extremely important for the steel producers and 
steel workers of Indiana's First congressional District, as 
well as workers across the country.
    I thank the Chairman for recognizing the importance of the 
strong Buy American requirements. Mrs. Filardo can you share 
why Buy American requirements, along with prevailing wage and 
project labor agreements are important to the Reopen and 
Rebuild America's School Act?
    Ms. Filardo. Yes. Thank you for that question and I've been 
really mystified by the negative comments about it. It's you 
know proper wages and the quality that we get from our school 
construction from the project labor agreements, and frankly 
from union builders is just not--is well-known.
    And we also know from building that was done under ARRA 
where you know in Texas and Arkansas and Georgia and California 
as well, spent money using the Federal dollars that they did 
not have a problem with Davis Bacon.
    And in fact in Georgia they reluctantly explained to me 
that they thought maybe it was a little bit higher, maybe 7 
percent that they had paid on a premium, but I would argue that 
you actually get something. You know there might be a little 
premium, I don't care if you get something for it.
    And we know that in this country we didn't have schools 
fall down on top of kids like they did in China during an 
earthquake right. So we have really safe schools. We have 
schools that are done at very high quality with our project 
labor agreements, and I think we should be proud of those and I 
don't think we should be lowering those standards at all.
    And certainly in terms of Buy American. One of the amazing 
things and wonderful things about our public schools is that 
they do have you know equipment and supplies and materials in 
them that are really--they're full of them frankly, with their 
furniture and equipment.
    And if we could be manufacturing more of that in this 
country we'd be very, very well-off. In Indiana I know there's 
locks on doors and hardware that comes out of Indiana, and all 
of this is really important to our schools. We need a lot of 
materials and equipment, and we should be manufacturing it 
here.
    Mr. Mrvan. I thank you very much. And I just wanted to 
close with saying that the Reopen Rebuild America's School Act 
along with the Buy American provision, one of my colleagues, 
Congresswoman Spartz asked what we can do together.
    And what I believe can unite our country is bring workers 
together and make sure that we're uplifting workers' ability to 
make a wage and a family sustaining income, along with health 
benefits, and along with a secured pension.
    And as we go forward, I just want to thank everyone for 
your participation. This ties everything together with early 
childhood development along with community college and 
dislocated workers and making sure we get our workforce back on 
track and being able to provide for their families.
    I thank you Mr. Chairman and I yield back.
    Chairman Scott. Thank you. And our next Member to be 
recognized is the gentlelady from Louisiana, Ms. Letlow.
    Mrs. Letlow. Chairman Scott, Ranking Member Foxx, Members 
of the Committee and witnesses. Thank you for taking the time 
to discuss President Biden's new legislative proposals, the 
American Jobs Plan, and American Families Plan.
    While I believe Congress should invest in education and 
workforce development efforts, we also must be mindful in 
evaluating four important areas before we start spending hard 
earned taxpayer dollars. First, how much we spend and the 
effect it will have on our children and grandchildren.
    Two, the regulatory burden that Congress puts on the use of 
funds, less government intervention, not more. Three, if we are 
addressing the root cause of the problem, throwing money at a 
program without addressing the challenges, or how we can 
measure the success is not a wise use of taxpayer dollars.
    And fourth, that the role of State and local governments 
for education spending. Most education spending is funded 
locally. Congress has already spent billions of dollars for 
education with the last several COVID-19 relief packages and 
stimulus bills. While some of the President's new proposals 
hold merit, like expand broadband access to rural areas. I have 
serious concerns about piling on additional spending when many 
of the already appropriated funds have yet to be allocated and 
sent out by the Federal Government.
    My question is for Dr. McCluskey. Do you know where the 
United States falls in comparison to other countries in terms 
of elementary and secondary education spending? And where do we 
fall in comparison to other countries in terms of our outcomes 
for these students?
    Mr. McCluskey. Yes. We spend more than almost any other 
country, certainly Luxemburg spends more an a few others. And 
if you look at international exams like the Tim's exam, or the 
PISA exam, especially if you look at math is where we struggle 
the most, it doesn't appear at least relative to other 
countries, they seem to generally spend less than we do.
    And they typically have better scores. Especially again if 
you look at the math. It's a little bit less when you look at 
reading, but it doesn't appear that we're getting the bang for 
the buck that we would like to get.
    Mrs. Letlow. Thank you. And finally there seems to be a 
perception that we are vastly underfunding education. Why do 
you think that perception persists?
    Mr. McCluskey. I think it's because a lot of the times we 
hear that well our schools of course are underfunded. It's 
repeating it as if is a given truth. And what's interesting is 
there's polling, often polling that's been done in the last few 
years, asking whether people think we spend enough on 
education. And it's usually you know maybe 60-some percent or 
so say no. We don't spend enough.
    And then when they're presented with the amount that we 
actually spend, that goes down by about 20 percentage points. 
So I think we're accustomed to hearing that we don't spend 
enough and that we're always cutting, but if you look at the 
numbers only after the Great Recession, if you go back to the 
1920's, only then did we see a dip in per pupil spending, 
adjusted for inflation, and it has since come back and was back 
in record levels.
    Mrs. Letlow. Thank you so much Dr. McCluskey and to the 
rest of the witnesses. Thank you for your time. Mr. Chairman I 
yield back the remainder of my time.
    Chairman Scott. Well thank you so much. The gentleman from 
New York Mr. Jones.
    Mr. Jones. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for holding this 
hearing and of course to the witnesses for testifying today. As 
I have listened to some of the questions and testimony, I am 
disappointed in some people at the lengths to which they will 
go to shortchange our students and teachers.
    One of the witnesses here today, Mr. McCluskey has made the 
argument that we should not increase our investment in 
education because the average score on the National Assessment 
on Educational Progress has only seen a nominal increase. I 
would like to just note that while it's true that the average 
score has only seen a slight increase, scores for Black and 
Hispanic students have increased tremendously.
    Between 1975 and 2012 the average reading score for 
students only increased by one point. But during that same 
period scores increased by 28 points for Black students, and 22 
for Hispanic students, and a similar trend can be seen with 
math scores.
    This shows that investing in students and schools, 
especially in poor communities and communities of color, 
improves outcomes and indeed does make a difference. We've also 
heard from others on this panel today that funding for 
education outside of Federal lands is somehow unconstitutional.
    A deeply embarrassing and unserious argument that I never 
expected any witness before this body to make, frankly. And of 
course we've also heard the tired argument that Federal 
infrastructure investments are somehow inefficient and 
wasteful.
    This runs counter to Ms. Filardo's testimony and what we've 
heard from stakeholders, constituents, and experts, including 
the non-partisan Government Accountability Office.
    And to Mr. McCluskey, you know, who may or may not have 
actually read the Constitution, I feel the need to remind him 
that Congress derives its authority to craft and enact 
legislation from the spending and general welfare clauses in 
that very document. The Federal Government provides 
approximately 8 percent of all funding for K through 12 
education. And what we are talking about today is the Federal 
Government playing a greater role in school infrastructure to 
improve the conditions of our Nation's public schools.
    Ms. Filardo school segregation continues to be a major 
barrier to educational equity. The legacy of decade's old 
discriminatory housing policies continues to exacerbate 
segregation in housing and in our Nation's schools.
    According to a 2016 GAO report schools are more segregated 
today than at any time since the 1960's. How can states and 
districts support improving school integration through school 
construction?
    Ms. Filardo. That's a great question and they certainly 
segregated them through school construction. And I think that 
in RRASA with the ability to do planning and the requirement to 
have good data, and have the communities engaged in planning 
with good data, that there will be a possibility to better plan 
to have integrated schools.
    But I would also like to caution that schools that are 100 
percent minority that are in poor condition should be 
modernized. They should not have to wait to have white students 
in them before they are modernized. And part of what's happened 
in many of our urban center city communities is the 
disinvestment in those schools has pushed enrollments down, so 
that they've been threatened with closing, and they've been 
closed rather than fixed up.
    And I think that we have to be careful about the frame on 
what it looks like because I think that we really want to make 
sure that this gets the highest needs kids, and then frankly 
those schools will more than likely to be integrated.
    We saw that in Washington, DC. when my kids were in school.
    Mr. Jones. Thank you so much. And Mr. Malik, President 
Biden recently proposed a 25-billion-dollar investment to 
upgrade childcare facilities and build new supply of childcare, 
especially in high need areas. At the Center for American 
Progress, you have written extensively about childcare deserts. 
Can you please explain what childcare deserts are, and how 
President Biden's plan would address the issue?
    Mr. Malik. Yes. We were first to collect the locations on 
all the licensed childcare programs in the U.S. and found most 
census tracks, there were more than three times as many 
children as there were licensed childcare slots, which we 
dubbed childcare deserts.
    Those were disproportionately rural areas, low-income 
areas. And what we really need to think about when we're 
investing those infrastructure dollars is how can we fill those 
gaps? How can we innovate to grow the childcare sector in its 
supply, to find those gaps and to serve those communities that 
have been underserved and have been left out?
    Mr. Jones. Thank you so much. Mr. Chairman I yield back.
    Chairman Scott. Thank you. Gentleman from New York Mr. 
Bowman.
    Mr. Bowman. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thank you to our 
witnesses. Ms. Filardo thank you for your leadership at the 
21st Century School Fund. As you already know before 
I was a Congressman, I was an educator in public schools for 20 
years. I know first-hand that the infrastructure needs of our 
neighborhood schools run deep.
    The quality of education we want for every child is only 
possible if we address the decades of disinvestment in our 
public schools, and specifically the learning environment we 
ask our students to learn in, and our educators and school 
staff to work in.
    Incrementalism is a timeline we can't settle for. The 
President's American Job Plan calls for 50 billion in direct 
school infrastructure grants, and 50 billion in bonds. RRASA 
doubles this investment with 100 billion in grants.
    Can you explain why 50 billion in bonds would not provide 
as much support to low-income stores and how RRASA will support 
the development of zero carbon schools?
    Ms. Filardo. Yes, I can. You know we were delighted to see 
school infrastructure in the President's plan, but actually 
quite disappointed in that the raising of the bonds, and the 
lowering of the grants is really counter to any agenda for 
greater equity.
    Wealthy districts, or even basically middle-income 
districts can afford to borrow. They can get credit. They don't 
have to pay high interest rate because they have credit. The 
poor districts they can't borrow. They don't go out to bond 
because there's no point. They've got no evidence stream to 
repay their debt with.
    So the lowering of the grant program in half was a real 
blow to low-income, the lowest income districts and really the 
highest need cities where they're already burdened with 
tremendous amount of debt.
    And I don't think people really realize but local school 
districts, you know, I said it earlier in my testimony, about a 
half a trillion dollars in local school bond debt, and you 
know, it's not that they're not trying. They really are, but 
they need the Federal help that RRASA would give.
    Mr. Bowman. Can you explain how poor school districts 
became poor in the first place?
    Ms. Filardo. Well there's a lot of different ways right, 
but part of it is the average size of a school district in this 
country is 1,000 students--median, I'm sorry, not the average, 
the median. And only you know a handful of districts that are 
really large. The small districts in part are small in part 
because of segregation.
    They were carved out to be small, and they don't come 
necessarily with high tax base or any tax base, whether it's 
sales tax or property tax. And so they are struggling, and they 
will not have any capacity to do a comprehensive project 
without State and Federal help.
    Obviously, in the cities you have a different situation 
where you've got the average age of your infrastructure at 60-
70 years old like in Baltimore or Philadelphia, and it's just 
so big and so old, and so expensive to work in these urban 
environments that they have had a very hard time meeting the 
level of needs that they need, as well as you know the 
challenges with you know the operating costs of operating very 
old infrastructure.
    So it's a very challenging thing and I know this is new. 
Federal funding for school infrastructure is new. You know they 
did it in the depression, but it's not been a program, but it's 
not that we can't solve this problem we can, but we need this 
Federal, State and local partnership to do it, and RRASA really 
lays a plan out.
    Mr. Bowman. Thank you. Mr. Lanter between 2018 and 2028 the 
direct care workforce is projected to add more than 1.3 million 
new jobs. Home care will add nearly 1.1 million jobs in that 
period which represents the largest growth of any job sector in 
the country, yet nearly a quarter of these workers still rely 
on public assistance due to low wages and poor benefits.
    What can we do as legislators to make sure that we are 
training enough care workers to meet the growing need, and how 
can we best ensure all care workers earn a living wage?
    Mr. Lanter. Yes. Good question, thanks Congressman. We have 
to do better. We need to start by acknowledging that the term 
quality jobs takes on many forms. But in all matters, we need 
to strive to ensure that individuals have dignity in work, and 
that they can provide for themselves and families.
    Sectors like the one you mentioned and another one we've 
been talking about here today early childhood education are in 
demand, and the impact of these industries are enormous. In 
California kidsdata.org reports that even though there are 
roughly 1 million childcare slots available, it's only one-
third of the need.
    The cost of business is annually 1.8 billion in absenteeism 
and turnover among working parents. But there are things we can 
do Congressman to help these industries.
    First, we should fund the development and articulation of 
career pathways that started entry in mid-range jobs in these 
industries like the ones we're discussing, and show how 
individuals can further their career and move into an 
occupation that pays better wages in that field, or into a 
related industry in a field nearby, a related industry, sorry.
    And second, fund the work of workforce intermediaries, 
organizations that have deep knowledge of the industries in 
question. They can work with employers to help provide better 
work environments. They can link education providers to 
workforce development. They can ensure wages are increased, and 
finally they can connect partnerships together resulting in 
models like apprenticeship programs.
    And this work can all be scaled by the funding in the 
American's Job Plan.
    Mr. Bowman. Awesome. Thank you Mr. Chairman I yield back. 
Sorry for going so far over.
    Chairman Scott. Thank you. Our next Member is the 
distinguished chair of the Budget Committee, the gentleman from 
Kentucky, Mr. Yarmuth.
    Mr. Yarmuth. Thank you very much Mr. Chairman and thanks to 
all our witnesses. It's been an interesting discussion. I think 
what I've come away with from the last couple of hours is a 
pretty stark reminder of why it's difficult to find common 
ground.
    I mean we have some very substantial differences here, not 
just about whether the Federal Government should be involved in 
financing our education across our country, but also what the 
value of education is. And I've been astounded to hear 
statements. I think basically one from Mr. McCluskey that 
diplomas are just pieces of paper.
    I don't know how many non-college graduates are in 
responsible positions at the Cato Institute. I suspect that 
virtually everyone there has a college degree, so there must be 
some value placed on that. I've heard comments about how early 
childhood education is not really effective.
    And these things are--represent again a stark difference in 
the--I won't necessarily say parties, but in the perspectives 
that we have in Congress. I'm particularly interested in early 
childhood education. We are now in a position in this country 
where for the first time a majority of children born in this 
country are not white.
    That means that at least on a particularly predictable 
basis, a larger percentage of our children will be coming from 
households where fewer resources of lower income levels than 
has historically been true. But they are the next generation, 
or two generations from now.
    They are our tax force. They are our workforce. And I think 
this has to be a major national priority. And you know I heard 
comments like studies show that a young child is better off 
developmentally with a parent. Well that may be true, but maybe 
true in a majority of cases. I don't know.
    I know it is not true for everyone. I know it is 
unrealistic because a vast--a huge number of our children are 
not in households where the parent can spend all of his or her, 
mostly her time with the child. And so I'll just keep asking 
where the answer is.
    I know what a former republican President said, that was 
George W. Bush who said we can't afford to allow children to be 
deprived of the education they deserve because they are in a 
State or a locality that doesn't want to make the efforts to 
provide the quality of education for them.
    And I think that's a truism, I think it remains true today 
if not more-true than it was almost 20 years ago. But again, 
I'm focused on early childhood education. I represent 
Louisville, Kentucky. You could say Happy Derby Week to me, but 
we have an institution there called the Keystone Academy.
    It's an early childhood development center. It sits in the 
middle of housing projects. Every child in that facility is a 
Black or brown child and is coming from lower income 
households. And they use something called the Reggio method in 
which the creativity of the kids determines what they do.
    The teachers are there to facilitate their wishes. I 
visited there and I was blown away. It was miraculous. These 
kids have such superior socialization skills, verbal skills. 
They are doing things that I could not believe two and 3 year 
olds could do.
    And it seems to me that when you have that unlimited 
potential, and the reality of the situation that we have 
literally tens of millions of kids in that position that we at 
the Federal level would not want to do something about that.
    So I fully support those provisions in the American 
Families Plan and will work very hard to see that that's done. 
I have one quick question I'd like to ask of Mr. Malik, and 
maybe somebody else would want to respond to it.
    And that is the one thing I worry about if we provide these 
enormous benefits to a lot of people, whether it's free 
community college for 2 years, or child care, are we going to 
have a resourcing problem, and how are we going to handle that 
resourcing problem. Because if you make a promise to American 
children that they're going to have access to full-quality and 
high-quality childcare, are we going to be able to provide 
that.
    Mr. Malik. Thank you, Congressman. I fully agree that this 
is a big project before us. I think the encouraging thing is 
we're talking about--finally talking about the kinds of 
investments that can get us to scale, but it will take several 
years, and we will need to prioritize certain regions, certain 
geographies, and certain categories of families and children as 
we move up to scale.
    Because currently right now we've got a system that is 
working for the rich and the upper middle class. They can keep 
paying and that's going to be annoying for them to keep paying, 
but that is I think doable, and that is the reason that we have 
the Child Care for Working Families Act scaled to the degree 
that it is.
    Mr. Yarmuth. Thank you for that. Thanks again to all the 
witnesses and I yield back.
    Chairman Scott. Thank you. Has any Member not been 
recognized for questions? I don't see anybody. If not, I'll 
recognize myself for 5 minutes starting with Ms. Filardo. You 
had indicated the problem is about 50 billion per year. Is that 
what we are under investing in school construction?
    Ms. Filardo. It's close.
    Chairman Scott. And you've talked about the problems State 
and local governments have in coming up with the money, 
particularly in low income areas. Can you say a word about why 
it's so important to use the Title I formula for distribution 
of the money, so it will actually go to low-income areas where 
it's most needed?
    Ms. Filardo. Yes. I mean it's absolutely critical that it's 
targeted because essentially what RRASA would do, even at 100 
billion, it's about not even 10 percent of the need nationally 
for what we should be spending on our school facilities right. 
So the 100 billion.
    The 50 billion is what we're not doing, it's the gap right 
roughly, right? So if you've got 10 billion a year to spend out 
of RRASA over 10 years, you have to target it in order to get 
to the poorest kids. I mean it's just not going to happen any 
other way. And you know we know that the politics of even 
states getting their dollars to the highest need is very tough, 
and very hard, you know.
    It's not easy choices when there's not enough money around, 
and so this is so important to get it to poor communities.
    Chairman Scott. Thank you. Mr. Riedl you indicated that 
this problem in getting people to work if they're getting 
unemployment, you're aware that if you've been offered a job 
you're not entitled to unemployment, is that right?
    Mr. Riedl. That is technically what the law has said, 
although that was relaxed during the pandemic. That was not 
fully enforced by states during the pandemic.
    Chairman Scott. But that's the rule. If you're offered a 
job, you're not entitled to unemployment compensation.
    Mr. Riedl. That is not always the case. If you can make a 
reason why, whether it's related to the pandemic or childcare, 
or anything like that you're not required to take the job. In 
some instances on paper you are, that has not necessarily been 
enforced however for the past year.
    Chairman Scott. OK. But the rule is if the employer offers 
you your job back and you refuse it, you'll just submit that to 
the Employment Commission and then you will lose your 
unemployment benefits, not just the $400.00 but the whole 
thing. Are you aware that you talked about the deficit that's 
growing over the years?
    You are aware that every republican President since Nixon 
has left office with the worst deficit situation as a 
percentage of GDP than they inherited, and every democratic 
administration has left with a better deficit situation than 
they inherited. Are you aware of that?
    Mr. Riedl. Yes. But that's--those stats can be used 
misleadingly. For instance, President Bush had a housing crash 
happen.
    Chairman Scott. Well--
    Mr. Riedl. President Trump had a pandemic happen at the end 
of his presidency.
    Chairman Scott. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. He was on track to 
have the worst deficit before the pandemic you're aware of 
that. So you're aware of the trend. You've also talked about 
the devastating impact on the deficit that this spending would 
have. Are you aware that there are taxes associated to pay for 
these programs, so will totally pay for the program within 15 
years? Are you aware of that?
    Mr. Riedl. No. These programs are not paid for. In fact, 
the current one only counts 8 years of spending and takes 15 
years of taxes, even though the spending programs would likely 
continue after 8 years. The Congressional Budget Office is 
going to show that the taxes do not pay for these programs.
    The proposal released today as well is also comes, will be 
scored by CBO as likely being about a trillion dollars short.
    Chairman Scott. In the 10-year window, but in 15 years so 
it will pay for itself.
    Mr. Riedl. But the spending that only assumes the spending 
stops. Unless the long-term care expansion is actually going to 
end after 8 years, which I do not believe is Congress's 
intention, the costs will continue, and the deficits will rise. 
That's why a lot of the long-term studies such as Penn Wharton 
have shown higher debt, lower wages, and lower GDP.
    Chairman Scott. I'll go back to the fact that every 
democrat since Kennedy has ended up with a better deficit 
situation than they inherited.
    Mr. Riedl. That's not based on policies, however.
    Chairman Scott. Just a coincidence. Mr. Lanter in terms of 
apprenticeships, you didn't mention healthcare, insurance or 
technology. Is there--can we fashion apprenticeships to cover 
these untraditional apprenticeship opportunities?
    Mr. Lanter. Absolutely Chairman. In fact there are already 
apprenticeship and pre-apprenticeships in those industries, 
including the insurance industry in our country and they're 
modeled off of apprenticeship programs in the European Union.
    Chairman Scott. Good thank you. And I see my time has 
expired. So I want to thank all of our witnesses for being with 
us today. I want to remind my colleagues that pursuant to 
Committee practice, materials for submission to the hearing 
record must be submitted to the Committee Clerk within 14 days 
following the last day of the hearing, so by close of business 
on May 12 of 2021, preferably in Microsoft Word format.
    Materials submitted must address the subject matter of the 
hearing. Only a Member of the Committee or an invited witness 
may submit materials for inclusion in the record. Documents are 
limited to 50 pages each.
    Documents longer than 50 pages may be incorporated into the 
record by way of an internet link that you must provide to the 
Committee Clerk within the required time but recognize that in 
the future that link may no longer work.
    Pursuant to House rules and regulations, items for the 
record should be submitted to the clerk electronically by 
emailing submissions to [email protected]. 
Members are encouraged to submit materials to the inbox before 
the hearing, or during the hearing at the time the Member makes 
the request.
    Again I want to thank the witnesses for your participation. 
Members of the Committee may have some additional questions for 
you that we may ask the witnesses to please respond to these 
questions in writing. The hearing record will be held open for 
14 days in order to receive those responses, and I remind my 
colleagues that pursuant to the Committee practice, witness 
questions for the hearing must be submitted to the Majority 
Committee Staff or Committee Clerk within 7 days and the 
questions submitted must address the subject matter of the 
hearing.
    The Ranking Member has indicated that she does not have a 
closing statement, so I just want to thank the witnesses for 
joining us today and for sharing their expertise with the 
Committee. Today's hearing made clear that the proposals in the 
American Job's Plan does not just provide immediate COVID-19 
relief for our communities, they also make long-term 
investments to address the lasting consequences of the pandemic 
and improve the quality of life across the country.
    Investments will help millions of displaced workers get the 
skills they need to find good paying jobs and ensure that 
students and staff can safely return to the classrooms. They 
will ensure that working families can afford safe and high-
quality childcare. And they will expand access to the lasting 
benefits of high-quality higher education.
    Importantly, today's hearing also established the urgency 
of these proposals. Nearly all of the consequences of the 
pandemic are exacerbating disparities that have existed far 
longer than COVID-19, unless we proactively invest in 
eliminating these disparities a recovery effort could just 
bring us back to the status quo that failed too many Americans 
even before the pandemic.
    That proactive investment is what we mean when we say Build 
Back Better. So again I want to thank our witnesses for their 
time today, and as we swiftly consider this legislative plan, I 
want to put aside, hopefully we can put aside our differences 
and work to build a stronger and more equitable future for all 
of the people in our country.
    If there's no further business before the Committee without 
objection the Committee stands adjourned. Thank you again for 
all of the witnesses.
    [Additional submissions by Chairman Scott follow:]
    
    
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    GAO Report 20-494: K-12 EDUCATION--School Districts 
Frequently Identified Multiple Building Systems Needing Updates 
or Replacement

    https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/CPRT-117HPRT47050/pdf/
CPRT-117HPRT47050.pdf
    [Additional submissions by Ms. Wilson follow:]
    
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    [Additional submission by Mr. Grothman follow:]
    
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    [Additional submission by Ms. Wild follow:]
    
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    [Questions submitted for the record and the responses by 
Mr. McCluskey follow:]

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    [Questions submitted for the record and the responses by 
Mr. Riedl follow:]

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    [Whereupon, at 4:05 p.m., the Committee was adjourned.]