[Congressional Record Volume 157, Number 48 (Tuesday, April 5, 2011)]
[House]
[Pages H2299-H2300]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                           CUTS TO THE BUDGET

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Oregon (Mr. DeFazio) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. DeFAZIO. A lot of talk around here about millions, billions, and 
trillions, but let's just try to put a face on some of the cuts the 
Republicans put in H.R. 1.
  I think one of the meanest of their cuts and the stupidest of their 
cuts is to eliminate a program called YouthBuild. Now, I'm sure most of 
them don't know what it is. They have never met with the kids who come 
back here every year.
  This is a program that started in 1992 under George H.W. Bush. It's a 
program that takes kids who have generally dropped out of high school, 
had problems with drugs, alcohol, other things, but at some point 
decide they want to get straight and they want to do something better 
with their lives.
  So this program takes kids between 16 and 24, helps them get their 
GED, gets them some counseling, gets them involved in peer groups. They 
learn leadership skills, teaches them how to build houses and the 
houses they build are for low-income Americans.
  In the long term we have found incredible results with this program. 
Last year--and these are almost 100 percent high school dropouts with 
problems--78 percent of the kids completed the program. That's pretty 
extraordinary. Now, after, when they leave the program, the longevity 
of the effect of this program, 7 years after completing the program, 75 
percent of the YouthBuild kids, kids who had problems with drugs, 
alcohol, homelessness, dropped out of high school, everything else, are 
either in college or employed in jobs earning more than $10 an hour.
  That's a pretty darn good investment. And what does this cost, and 
why would the Republicans zero it out? Well, it cost $102 million last 
year for 20,000 students.
  Now, we could, I guess, instead leave them in the street without 
their high school degree, hopeless, maybe they would get back on drugs, 
maybe they will get in trouble, maybe we will them in jail, and then we 
will spend $30,000 a

[[Page H2300]]

year to support them in prison. Twenty thousand bucks for 1 year to get 
these kids straight and have them become productive members of our 
society zeroed out by Republicans.
  Now, it is a lot of money. That's almost 1 hour of spending for the 
Pentagon across the river, almost 1 hour. And there's no waste at the 
Pentagon, though. We are not allowed to look at the Pentagon for waste. 
It's almost 2 days--that's a lot--of agriculture subsidies, paying 
people not to grow things.
  So 2 days of paying people not to grow things or a year's funding for 
a program that takes kids who have been in trouble but want to do 
better, want to learn some skills, want to be productive members of 
society and helps them get a leg up. But, no, in the Republican world, 
that's wasteful spending. They have zeroed out this program.
  I met with eight of these kids last week. I meet with them every year 
when they come back--I urge my Republican colleagues, for once. I asked 
if they had seen their Republican member of my delegation. They said 
no. They met with a staff person, maybe an intern. Republicans can't 
seem to be bothered.
  But they should listen to these kids, there's a lot of wisdom there 
and, I think, future leaders there. They have gotten their lives 
straight and they have gone through some hard times, and we gave them a 
little help, yes, 1 year. They get $500 a month while they are in the 
program, while they are building houses for low-income people, learning 
skills. And as taxpayers in the future, they will pay that back pretty 
darn quickly.
  Now I wonder why they eliminated this program. First of all, I am 
sure they don't know what it is. They have never met with the kids, 
they don't care. These aren't people who go to the country club after 
all. But, secondly, probably because it's housed in the Department of 
Labor, and we hate anything on the Republican side of the aisle that 
has the word ``labor'' in it.
  God forbid that America should do things for working people in this 
country or working people should be allowed the right to organize and 
have a better life. Well, this is a program that should be continued. 
It should, in fact, be enhanced. They had 19,000 kids who couldn't get 
in the program last year, on the waiting list, 19,000.
  We should double the size of this program, maybe triple it. That 
would be a huge amount of money. That would be 3 hours of spending at 
the Pentagon, or almost a week of subsidies, paying corporations not to 
grow things on surplus lands.
  Boy, I guess we can't afford that, can we? But we can't cut the 
subsidies, and we can't look for waste at the Pentagon, but we can 
stick it to these kids.
  Good work, Republicans.

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