[Congressional Record Volume 165, Number 71 (Wednesday, May 1, 2019)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2546-S2548]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                           Opportunity Zones

  Mr. BRAUN. Mr. President, I thank Senator Ernst for allowing me the 
opportunity to talk about opportunity zones.
  So much has happened since President Trump has been elected that I 
think has brought opportunity. The economy is obviously booming. In the 
State of Indiana, for instance, we have 156 opportunity zones in 83 
different cities and 58 counties. That is a lot in one State. This is 
investment into these areas that need jobs. Capital investment is hard 
to measure. Thank goodness it has come along and has been an 
opportunity that we in the Hoosier State have taken advantage of.
  We are one of the lowest unemployment States in the Union. I am from 
Dubois County, from the town of Jasper, which supports the lowest 
unemployment rates in our State--a State of enterprise, a State of 
commerce. Workforce development is probably the most critical issue 
that faces our State, but we do a lot of other things well. We live 
within our means. We addressed infrastructure back in 2017 by repairing 
roads and bridges and by doing a lot of things well.
  We have 80,000 jobs in our State that need one simple thing, and that 
is proper training.
  When I went to school back in the seventies--it dates me a little 
bit--I took industrial arts. You had a shop class. You had a welding 
class. You had practical training that led you into good-paying jobs. 
Somewhere along the way, we kind of almost stigmatized that pathway 
called career and technical education. We have schools like Ivy Tech. 
When I was a State legislator, there were 19 different programs, and we 
were spending nearly $1 billion a year, but we were not providing 
proper training for high-demand, high-wage jobs.
  In our State, we are shipping out twice as many 4-year degrees as we 
use. Something is not right. I just spoke with an online college, which 
is another issue I want to mention. The cost of these 4-year degrees 
has gotten way out of hand. Many graduates spend $80,000, $90,000, 
$100,000. They take on that debt and have jobs that are not marketable.
  We need to pay attention to the simple things that most States need 
by reorienting the focus of education and providing proper training for 
jobs that

[[Page S2547]]

in many cases pay more than 4-year degrees, those that start in the 
neighborhood of $40,000 to $60,000 and have good benefits and potential 
wages of over $100,000 a year. In our State and in most States across 
the country, those are the jobs that need to be filled.
  In my own company, 80 jobs can't be filled because, really, there 
needs to be a better curriculum at the high school level, one from 
which you get basic skills taught rather than the misguided approach of 
overemphasizing 4-year degrees. There is nothing wrong with that, and 
everyone should aspire to that, but the market doesn't necessarily need 
it. It will pay more for a lot less education, and you will not be 
walking away with the debt that so many students do in this day and 
age.
  Tax reform then came along. As a business owner, I can clearly say 
that there has been nothing in the 38 years of building a little Main 
Street business into a national company that has catapulted our ability 
to do more for our employees than what has happened with tax reform.
  An opportunity zone is a great idea. We need to have more of it, and 
we need to make sure this institution starts to set an example across 
this country whereby we live within our means and not create $850 
billion deficits annually on top of $22 trillion of debt. We all know 
that is going to lead us nowhere other than into despair down the road.
  Again, I am here to tout what tax relief and the JOBS Act did, as 
well as opportunity zones, which we have run with in the Hoosier State. 
We also need to fix a few things, like matching training and education 
with high-demand, high-wage jobs. If we do that across the country, I 
think we will be into decades of prosperity that will prevent us from 
maybe going down that trail of some of the things we have heard about 
recently, like the Green New Deal, Medicare for All, and a lot of 
things that we know we can't afford and that will not work.
  Thank you.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Perdue). The Senator from South Carolina.
  Mr. SCOTT of South Carolina. Mr. President, I thank Vice Chair Ernst 
for putting this event together on the floor to talk about the success 
of opportunity zones and what they could mean for so many Americans who 
desperately need the assistance in so many places. Without any 
question, this is a great part of the tax bill that has not received 
enough attention. A lot of folks know about opportunity zones, and a 
lot of folks are excited about opportunity zones.
  I would like to spend a little time talking about the success of our 
economy and touching on some of the issues that my colleague Senator 
Braun spoke about as well, those being the importance of workforce 
development and of making sure our workforce has the skills that meet 
the jobs of our current economy.
  One estimate said that perhaps there are a million more jobs than 
there are people looking for work, and a part of the reason why that is 
so is because we still need to make sure that we harmonize the skill 
set necessary to do the work with the skills being taught or trained to 
our younger folks and folks looking for work.
  This has been an amazing journey from an economic perspective, when 
you think about where we are financially as a country.
  This past quarter we saw the announcement of a growth rate of around 
3.2 percent. That is astounding because all of the estimates were so 
significantly lower.
  We finished 2018 with a growth rate of around 3.1 percent. Now, we 
have not seen that acceleration in our economy in a very long time. So 
it is really good news for those folks looking for work.
  Our unemployment rate is near a 50-year low--somewhere between 3.8 
and 3.9 percent. This is something we haven't seen in a very long time. 
African-American unemployment is near 7 percent. Some of the lowest 
numbers ever recorded in the history of the country for African-
American employment are there now. Hispanic unemployment is in the same 
range--very low, record lows.
  We have seen wages in the last several months continue to increase. 
Wage growth is now hitting the bottom quintile of our workforce at a 3-
percent growth rate, which is really good news because it was another 
one of those targets that we knew was important for us to reach.
  Said differently, income disparity is shrinking because of the 
success of our Tax Code and the success of our regulatory reset, and 
that is good news for everyone.
  The economic recovery, however, has been uneven. Part of the 
challenge that we see is that there are areas of our Nation that are 
not doing as well as the numbers I have just indicated. That reinforces 
the fact that, as a whole, the Nation is succeeding and the people of 
our country are succeeding at a much higher level and at a faster clip. 
However, rural America still lags a little behind and needs more tools 
in the toolkit, more arrows in the quiver to address some of the 
challenges that are endemic and specific to those rural parts of our 
country.
  I am thankful to have partnered in the opportunity zone legislation 
with folks who are compassionate and who are committed to making sure 
that rural America realizes its full potential.
  I have had an opportunity to travel this country on my national 
opportunity zone tour. I have gone from places in Florida, with Senator 
Rubio, to parts of our country that I have really enjoyed seeing, but I 
can't articulate fully the passion that I saw in folks from West 
Virginia, New Hampshire, and Iowa when we had a chance to tour these 
three States and learn more about the rural economy and the potential 
in those rural economies.
  I remember vividly walking down in Huntington, WV, with my good 
friend Senator Capito. We had a great visit in Huntington, WV, and what 
we realized there was the passion of the people and the willingness to 
work were evident and that we needed to bring more resources to the 
table so that the employers and would-be employers would make the 
investment in Huntington, WV, and in other parts of rural West 
Virginia.
  We left there encouraged and enthusiastic because the opportunity 
zone legislation was seen as a true tool in the toolkit for rural 
America that needed to be rolled out. At that time, it hadn't been 
rolled out like it has been now.
  So today we see over $100 billion migrating toward opportunity funds. 
That means good news for rural America. If we are able to continue that 
progress, we will see rural America live its full potential, and that 
is great news.
  I enjoyed visiting New Hampshire with Governor Sununu, where the 
unemployment rate is 2.4 percent, one of the lowest in the country. But 
even in a place like New Hampshire, where the unemployment rate is 
really low, the rural parts of the State were still devastated and 
needed an infusion of hope and opportunity. The O zone, or the 
opportunity zone, has presented itself as one of the many solutions 
necessary to confront some of the rural issues that we saw in New 
Hampshire.
  I enjoyed my time in West Des Moines with Senator Ernst, as we had a 
chance to visit a potential housing project incubator at a church, 
where folks were fascinated by using the tax deferral to encourage and 
to attract more investment into West Des Moines because the people are 
willing to work. There is dignity in all work, and they understood 
that. They were passionate about opportunities, and they needed another 
tool to make it happen.
  Opportunity zones are a part of that toolkit, and I will say, without 
any question, that when you think about great leadership, it is hard to 
have missed the compassion and the passion that Joni Ernst has for her 
constituents and her business owners and her willingness to partner 
with legislation like the opportunity zones and partner with the 
entrepreneurs of her State and the folks who are looking for ways to 
reinvest in their own neighborhoods to help encourage and to support a 
willing workforce.
  That tool of opportunity zones can be brought to bear against some of 
the strongest and hardest challenges in rural America, and I am here to 
say thank you to my colleagues for, a, making sure that opportunity 
zones are a reality; b, for taking this time on the floor to encourage 
others, especially our rural Americans, to stay hopeful; and, c, to 
continue to address some of the challenges that Senator Braun mentioned 
about the workforce

[[Page S2548]]

development and harmonizing the skill set with the workforce in a way 
that allows for those folks to realize their full potential and live 
the American Dream.
  I yield to Senator Capito.
  Mrs. CAPITO. Mr. President.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from West Virginia.
  Mrs. CAPITO. Mr. President, I want to thank my colleague Senator Tim 
Scott from South Carolina. I am going to talk a little bit about our 
visit later, but our visit was really tremendous in West Virginia.