[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 78 (Thursday, May 11, 1995)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E1012-E1013]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


                       CAREERS BILL INTRODUCTION

                                 ______


                        HON. WILLIAM F. GOODLING

                            of pennsylvania

                    in the house of representatives

                         Thursday, May 11, 1995
  Mr. GOODLING. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to join Training Subcommittee 
Chairman Buck McKeon, his Vice Chairman Frank Riggs, Youth Subcommittee 
Chairman Duke Cunningham, Congressman Steve Gunderson, Majority Whip 
Tom DeLay, Conference Chairman John Boehner, and Budget Committee 
Chairman John Kasich, to introduce the CAREERS (the Consolidated and 
Reformed Education, Employment, and Rehabilitation Act) Act to reform 
the Federal job training system.
  This bill is the result of a number of Subcommittee hearings, and is 
the first complete product of the Opportunities Committee's 
[[Page E1013]] Agenda 104 process in which we examined the various 
programs within our Committee's jurisdiction to determine their 
effectiveness. Our Committee will be working to mark up this bill 
throughout the month of May, and will hopefully send a bill to the 
floor for consideration early this summer.
  We drafted this bill starting from the position that the current 
Federal Work Force Preparation System is fundamentally flawed and in 
need of reform. There are simply too many programs, too much 
bureaucracy, too much duplication, and too much waste of taxpayer 
money.
  The CAREERS bill is drafted based on two overarching principles: 
quality and local control. For many years, I have been talking to 
anyone who would listen about the need to institute quality into the 
Federal training system. Briefly, CAREERS focuses on providing quality 
training services by:
  Simplifying the entire system from more than 100 programs into just 
four that we believe should be the focus of Federal involvement in job 
training: adult employment and training; adult education; vocational 
rehabilitation; and, career education and training for youths;
  Giving States and communities the maximum amount of responsibility to 
run their own programs;
  Because we believe that education and literacy hold the key to 
maintaining the long-term economic competitive position of the United 
States, we require that these issues are a key focus of the Federal 
work force preparation system; and
  Demanding results in the form of high standards for improvement of 
local training and education systems.
  With regard to local control: let me be clear, we are giving States 
and localities more power to run Federal job training programs than 
they have ever had in recent history. Governors will have unprecedented 
power to coordinate all Work Force preparation State level activities. 
As a State's highest ranking elected official, a Governor is the key to 
the job training system in every State.
  It is at the local level, however, where the most dramatic change 
takes place. Work force development boards led by businesses will 
coordinate the entire system in communities around the Nation. They 
will create one-stop sites to ensure coordinated access to all local 
work force preparation programs. They will operate programs for adult 
training and severely disabled adults, as well as work with schools, 
libraries, literacy providers, and others to ensure the entire training 
system works together within the community.
  As you can see, this is a tremendous undertaking and truly a dramatic 
reform in the way the Federal Government does business in job training. 
The CAREERS bill also undertakes enormous reforms in the higher 
education arena as well by eliminating SPREs (State Postsecondary 
Review Entities) and privatizing the SALLIE MAE and CONNIE LEE 
corporations.
  Our final note. We have looked carefully at other approaches that 
would completely turn this program over to States in a modified version 
of ``revenue sharing.'' As I have said many times, I do not support 
revenue sharing because we have no revenue to share. What I support is 
outlined in this bill: four consolidated programs, additional 
flexibility for States and communities, but we must continue the 
Federal role in demanding results in the form of broad standards and 
goals to ensure accountability for this important investment of 
taxpayer dollars.
  Again, I salute the hard work of Committee members to come up with 
this bill, and I look forward to working with the Administration and 
Committee Democrats to develop a bill that truly reforms our Nation's 
job training system.


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