[Congressional Record Volume 165, Number 71 (Wednesday, May 1, 2019)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2558-S2560]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                            Economic Growth

  Mr. PORTMAN. Mr. President, first, I say thanks to my colleague from 
Delaware for the touching tribute to Chris and his service in the U.S. 
Navy.
  I am here to talk about our economy, what is going on out there, and 
how we can do a better job of bringing people off the sidelines and 
into work. They are needed.
  Right now we have an incredibly strong economy. We just learned in 
the first quarter of this year that the economy grew by 3.2 percent. 
That is strong and way above expectations. In fact, when you look at 
the expectations that were set by the Congressional Budget Office, 
which is a nonpartisan group that analyzes what is going to happen in 
the economy going forward, prior to the tax bill being signed into 
law--that is, the tax reform and tax cuts from the end of 2017--they 
said this first quarter growth would be 1.6 percent. It is interesting. 
It was exactly twice the economic growth than was projected before the 
tax bill.
  By the way, before the tax bill, they also made a projection on jobs. 
Over the last year, we have produced just about exactly twice as many 
jobs--a little more than that--than was projected. The tax cuts and the 
tax reform have worked, along with regulatory relief, to give this 
economy a shot in the arm. That is so important.
  I will say that when you look at what happened in the first quarter 
of this year, the 3.2 percent is great, but it would have been even 
better had we not shut down the government. I say that because we have 
some new numbers from the Congressional Budget Office that say that the 
level of GDP this first quarter would have been 0.2 percent more if we 
had not had the government shutdown late last year, which was the 
longest government shutdown in the history of our country. So it would 
have been 3.6 percent instead of 3.2 percent. Wow, that would be 
terrific. I guess I bring that up only because I think it is time for 
us, again, to prepare for the potential of our having another impasse 
year at the end of this fiscal year on September 30. I hope we will 
avoid going into another government shutdown. It just doesn't make 
sense. It is shooting ourselves in the foot.
  There is legislation called the End Government Shutdowns Act. Almost 
all of my colleagues on this side of the aisle have now sponsored that 
legislation. It just avoids our going into a shutdown but still allows 
us to continue to move forward on our spending and, over time, reduce 
that spending until we get our act together and do the appropriations 
bills here. Again, there is good news in terms of job growth in the 
first quarter.
  The other thing I think is really important and may be the most 
important statistic of all is the fact that wages are going up for the 
first time in a decade. Really, in Ohio, for a decade and a half, we 
have had flat wages--higher expenses but flat wages. It is really 
frustrating to the families who are working hard and doing everything 
right but can't get ahead. Over the last year now, we have seen wage 
increases. A 3.4-percent wage increase is the strongest we have seen 
since the great recession. I love the fact that this wage growth is 
happening not just among higher paid individuals but, actually, 
primarily among what is called nonsupervisory employees. That is how 
the Department of Labor terms it. These are blue-collar jobs. These are 
middle-class jobs. These are jobs of people who, again, have had a 
tough time making ends meet. I know in my State most people work 
paycheck to paycheck, and it is great to have that higher wage come in.
  We passed tax reform because we believed it is the right thing to do 
for our economy, for employers, for investment, and we have seen that 
positive impact. I have had over two dozen townhall meetings and 
roundtable discussions in my State, talking to employers, usually 
smaller businesses, about what happened to them with regard to tax 
reform. Every single one of them said the same thing: We have 
reinvested in the business. We have invested in technology, in new 
equipment, and we have invested in our people. In some cases, that 
means better benefits. In two cases, small businesses acknowledged to 
me that they weren't providing healthcare before the tax cuts, and now 
they are because of the savings from the tax cut. They have also 
invested in people's 401(k)s and other benefits. That is what is 
happening out there in terms of the business side of the tax reform and 
tax cuts.
  In addition to that, there are also a lot of Americans who now have 
more of their hard-earned money coming home. Their paychecks are better 
because of the middle-class tax cuts that are in the legislation. For 
Ohio, this amounted to $2,000 per year, on average, for a median-income 
family. I know there has been a lot of discussion by others saying: 
Well, really, these tax cuts didn't happen. Yes, they did. They did. 
That is a fact. Most people I represent have seen a tax cut, and a lot 
of those individuals saw their overall tax liability go down--not just 
that the monthly checks were better, but on April 15 they had better 
news. Let me give you some facts about that.
  According to H&R Block, which is probably the firm that handles more 
middle-class tax returns than any other firm in the country, the 
average Ohioan saw a 23.3-percent decrease in their overall tax bill in 
2018. This is from H&R Block. They also said that there is a 2.3-
percent increase in the average refund in Ohio. I know there has been a 
lot of discussion about this back and forth, and early on people were 
concerned about their refunds. These are the numbers. These are the 
facts from H&R Block. Overall, about 90 percent of middle-class 
Americans received a tax cut in 2018, which means more money in their 
pockets to pay down student debt, to save for retirement, to take a 
long-awaited family vacation, and to be able to, again, achieve 
whatever their dream is in life.
  The economy is growing, creating jobs, and wages are rising. That is 
all

[[Page S2559]]

good news. But with more jobs there is a problem that has developed, 
and that is a lack of workers. I can't go anywhere in Ohio--and I just 
had a bunch of meetings in Ohio, talking about this--where people don't 
tell me: We don't have enough qualified workers to fill the jobs that 
we have. Some people call it the skills gap, and that is true in Ohio. 
We have a mismatch between the skills that are out there--the skills 
that people who are looking for jobs have--and the jobs that are 
available. If you go on the OhioMeansJobs website right now, you will 
see about 145,000 jobs being offered. When you look at them, these are 
good jobs. A lot of them, though, require a certain level of skill. 
Some are information technology jobs, coding jobs. Some are skilled 
manufacturing jobs, like machining or welding. Some of the jobs are in 
bioscience, healthcare jobs, technicians. The problem is we don't have 
the people who have the skills to fill those jobs. That is a shame for 
those individuals who aren't achieving their hopes in life because they 
aren't getting those good jobs and certainly for our economy, which 
would be even stronger if we had more people to fill those jobs.

  According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics at the Department of 
Labor, 7.3 million U.S. jobs are currently vacant, again, largely 
because of the shortage of qualified workers. The National Skills 
Coalition estimates that nearly half of all job openings between now 
and 2022 will be what they call middle-skill jobs. This means jobs that 
require education beyond high school, like a certificate program, but 
not a 4-year degree. The supply of skilled workers in this category--
students pursuing post high school certifications--still falls way 
short of what the industry demand is.
  This is why career and technical education is important. CTE is part 
of the answer to this. If you are in high school and looking for an 
opportunity, check out your career and technical academy. In many high 
schools, it is combined in one CTE program. It is a great opportunity. 
It will give you the knowledge and training necessary to succeed in 
your career.
  I am the cofounder and the cochair of what is called the Senate CTE 
Caucus. We have been working to raise awareness of this issue, so many 
of my colleagues have now joined this caucus because they go home and 
see the same thing. How do we connect our hard-working Ohioans to good-
paying jobs, and how do we strengthen these CTE programs to make them 
more affordable and more accessible?
  One answer is legislation recently reintroduced by Senator Tim Kaine 
and me. It is called the JOBS Act. It is really very simple. It says we 
should be allowed to use Pell grants not just to pay for college but to 
pay for shorter term certificate programs. These have to be qualified 
programs, programs that provide real credentials to people. Right now, 
with the Pell grant, if it is a program of less than 15 weeks, you 
can't use it. So low-income students all over the country are told: You 
can go to college. That is great. We are going to encourage you to do 
that, incentivize you to do that, but you can't get this short-term 
training program that can get you the job right away.
  In Ohio, if those students graduate--and most don't--their average 
debt is $27,000 compared, again, to the opportunity to go through the 
short-term training program, get the job, and begin to make money to 
buy the car, to be able to buy a small home or at least to rent an 
apartment and not be in your parents' basement, and to be able to move 
ahead with your life and your family. So career and technical education 
is a great opportunity, and the JOBS Act would make it much more likely 
that people would take that opportunity.
  By the way, the community colleges around the country love the JOBS 
Act. I believe it is their top priority this year. Why? Because so many 
of them are now offering these certificate-based programs because they 
are responding to the needs of the community and what the businesses 
are telling them they need.
  It is going to be different in every community, by the way, and that 
is good. There is no ``one size fits all.'' In some communities in 
Ohio, because we are a big manufacturing State, it is welding, and it 
is machining. In other places around the country, it might be something 
else. It might be for the fishing industry, the oil and gas industry, 
or bioscience. All across Ohio I have seen how these programs are 
working and could work even better if we had the JOBS Act.
  Last week I toured Venture Products. It is a family-owned company 
that designs and makes tractors. They make an incredible product called 
the Ventrac. They have a really impressive facility, and it was great 
to see them and their success. The company has benefited from tax 
reform and has made additional investments in its business and its 
workers with their tax savings, just like all of these companies that I 
have gone to visit all over our State.
  After the tour of the company, we had a roundtable discussion. It was 
with educators--people from the local community college and career and 
technical education folks who came in--also business people and people 
from the area who were involved in economic development because they 
are very concerned that without the workforce they can't expand the 
businesses in this community in Ohio. We talked about the need to 
strengthen CTE programs, and we talked about the JOBS Act. All of them 
agreed that this would be really helpful and helpful right now.
  I also had a visit at the Central Ohio Technical College. The 
investiture ceremony took place last Thursday, and I had the chance to 
meet the new president, Dr. John Berry. There are a lot of exciting 
things happening at this career and technical college.
  They work pretty closely with Ohio State, which is terrific. So you 
have Ohio State, a 4-year college, and a great series of graduate 
programs, working directly with these community colleges that focus on 
skills training. They are expanding their programming, which will help 
to meet the needs of today's workforce. The JOBS Act, according to 
them, will greatly benefit the students who are using these shorter 
term programs to put them on a path to a good-paying job.
  In Walnut Creek, OH, I spoke at the Eastern Ohio Development 
Alliance's annual meeting in Hockley County. This meeting represented 
counties from all over eastern and southeastern Ohio. We talked about a 
lot of things, including the shortage of skilled workers, because it 
comes up again and again. In this case, Ohio has this wonderful 
opportunity with the Marcellus and the Utica Shale finds to develop our 
natural gas and our wet gas and our oil industry, but they need 
workers. We don't want to have workers coming in from out of State, 
frankly. We want to develop our own Ohio workforce, and we can only do 
that with skills training because a lot of these jobs require skills 
that are not available in Ohio today.
  In Columbus, last week I spoke at a reentry conference. This is an 
annual conference talking about how to get people going from prison 
into our communities with the job skills they need and the mental 
health and drug treatment they need to be successful. Again, it all 
came down to this issue of workforce training being so important, both 
because it helps people to get a job and not go back into the prison 
system and also because getting a job is an essential part of so many 
successful recovery programs for people who have drug and alcohol 
addiction and want to be able to participate in our economy. This gives 
them meaning and purpose in life and helps with their recovery.
  I was in Knox County at a roundtable discussion. Again, in this case, 
it was with first responders, local elected officials, and the 
leadership of their mental health and recovery organization there. 
Their board there is focused on dealing with the crystal meth problem. 
It has almost pushed the opioid problem to the second most troubling 
drug problem in the community. They still have overdoses from opioids. 
They are still concerned about that. Crystal meth has now come in with 
a vengeance--pure crystal meth from Mexico. Their big issue is how to 
get people in recovery and successful recovery. Again, the issue of job 
training came up. How do you give people the skills they need to get a 
job, and how do you incorporate job skills in a recovery program, 
again, so people have a reason to turn their life around to get

[[Page S2560]]

back with their family. That purpose and meaning come from a job, so 
often.
  So it was an opportunity to talk about the need for us to develop the 
workforce to meet the needs of our communities and the opportunity to 
talk about the need for the JOBS Act. I am really pleased that the JOBS 
Act is in the President's budget this year. I thank President Trump and 
his administration for including that. It makes all the sense in the 
world. The higher education bill will be reauthorized this year, we all 
hope. That is certainly the plan. If that happens, it is the perfect 
place for having the JOBS Act included.
  Senator Kaine of Virginia and I are the coauthors of this 
legislation. We are hopeful that our colleagues on both sides of the 
aisle will join us in this legislation and help us to get it in the 
Higher Education Act. I know that it is a priority of many members of 
that committee, and Chairman Alexander, in particular, has a passion 
for ensuring that we have the training we need out there to get people 
the jobs to let them achieve their dreams in life.
  Passing the JOBS Act will give us an opportunity to help so many 
Americans have better opportunities, and, just as importantly, it would 
enable us to help our economy right now because the biggest concern I 
hear is no longer the taxes. People love the tax cuts and tax reform, 
and they love the regulatory relief, but they are looking for skilled 
workers. This is an opportunity. Let's seize it. Let's keep growing our 
economy and help Americans fulfill their God-given potential.
  I yield the floor.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Nebraska.


                       Honoring Our Armed Forces