[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.
____________________