[Congressional Record Volume 150, Number 46 (Monday, April 5, 2004)]
[Senate]
[Pages S3627-S3628]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              JOB TRAINING

  Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, first, in terms of jobs and job training, 
this morning the President of the United States unveiled a proposal to 
double the number of Americans who would receive job training 
assistance from the Federal Government. The initiative reflects the 
President's commitment to help people get the training they need, they 
require to find new jobs and better jobs. It builds upon an earlier 
proposal by the President of the United States announced in his State 
of the Union Message in January to help community colleges train an 
additional 100,000 workers for industries that are creating jobs in 
this country, to bring these job training programs to people who need 
the education and the job training, and to use our community colleges, 
expanding on the tremendous resource they provide today.
  As we all know, our economy is changing and changing fast. It is 
being transformed in so many ways. That is a great source of strength 
and adaptability, that flexibility to changing times both here in this 
country and around the world. Yet, at the same time, as we increasingly 
realize, this transformation, this adaptability, this flexibility in 
our economy--these changes in our economy--almost by definition result 
in a dislocation, a loss of jobs for some individual workers. That 
leaves us with a responsibility that we on the floor of the Senate must 
address, and we have addressed in part, but we have not fully 
addressed.
  We must make a strong commitment to effective--I underscore that word 
``effective''--job training programs that will help American workers 
adapt to that changing economy, to give them the tools they need to 
fill those new jobs that are being created.
  The Department of Labor, as we all know by now, announced last Friday 
that more than a half a million new jobs have thus far been created 
this year. That is good news. It is great news. We need to keep working 
to ensure that more jobs are created, and that workers are being 
trained to fill those new jobs that are being created. We need to 
respond now as well as in the months ahead.
  We hear about the Workforce Investment Act, the WIA. We hear about 
it, and we hear that it is being obstructed, that we have acted in the 
Senate, that the House has acted, but it cannot make it to conference. 
Yes, this is one of a whole series of bills that we have worked on, 
that we have passed, and then we have this obstruction in getting to 
conference. Although my colleagues know, others who are listening may 
not: No matter how much work you do on the Senate floor, and the House 
floor, and you pass things, until you get it to conference and work 
through it and bring it back to the floor, it does not become law of 
the land. That is exactly where we are with this Workforce Investment 
Act.
  People ask, what is the Workforce Investment Act? Right now, our 
Federal Government sends about $4 billion--actually, more than $4 
billion--a year to State governments and local governments through this 
Workforce Investment Act. However, last year, only 200,000 people--
200,000 workers--received job training through these programs.
  President Bush, as he outlined today, has set a goal to double the 
number of workers receiving job training through Workforce Investment 
Act programs. So we have fewer than 200,000 workers, and that would 
mean doubling it to 400,000 workers a year. He set out--and 
appropriately, I believe, and as reflected in our underlying bill--he 
wants to do this by maximizing the Federal dollars that are sent, by 
maximizing those Federal dollars directly to the workers themselves--
getting it right down to the workers themselves, No. 1, and, No. 2, 
eliminating the bureaucracy, the overlap, the duplication, the overhead 
cost, where we know there are going to be additional savings. So we 
have a problem, but it is a problem that we know can be fixed.
  Right now, the Federal Government spends $23 billion a year on more 
than 30 job training programs, spread across nine different Departments 
and agencies.
  The result of that is a confusing patchwork of programs that result 
in overlapping, inefficiencies, confusion, and chaos. This overlap of 
all of these programs results in bureaucratic redtape. You put all that 
together, it means fewer of the dollars that are allocated, that are 
spent actually get down to that individual worker or person who is to 
receive job training. I applaud the President for his focus on creating 
jobs, on training workers for jobs today and the future, but we in the 
Congress have to step up as well.
  The fact is the Workforce Investment Act has expired. It needs to be 
reauthorized. Mr. Enzi, the Senator from Wyoming, who is chairman of 
the Subcommittee on Employment Safety and Training of the Committee on 
Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions, has done a tremendous job in 
working with his colleagues in a bipartisan way to develop a bill. That 
bill has passed in the Senate. A companion bill has passed in the 
House. But because of objections from the other side of the aisle, we 
have been unable to go to conference, to pull those two bills together 
on this important JOBS legislation.
  I do hope that the other side of the aisle will reconsider their 
objections to go to conference so that we indeed can get important 
legislation to the President and get workers back to work, get people 
back to work who may have lost their jobs with the appropriate 
training. That is our responsibility. The President has laid out the 
vision, laid out the agenda. We have written the legislation. We passed 
the legislation. Now it is time to marry that legislation with the 
House in conference.
  Thus I ask my colleagues on the other side of the aisle to reconsider 
and

[[Page S3628]]

allow us to go to conference. It is in our workers' best interest. 
Indeed, it is in America's best interest.

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