Date: 2012-09-20
Speaker: GEORGE MILLER (democrat)
Chamber: H
State: California

Mr. Speaker. I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker. this is all interesting. except the fact is theres nothing in what the Secretary of Health and Human Services has proposed thats inconsistent with the Republican position over the years. with the Bush administration position over the years. with the Clinton administration position over the years and the Obama administration position over the years. and that is that when they passed historic welfare reform there would be an authority in there so. as the Governors lived with this over time. they could make adjustments. And thats why we keep reciting to the various instances when Governors have asked for this29 Governors of both parties. a couple of Republican Governors recentlyasking for this authority. because they thought they had a better way to put it to work. Its rather interesting today that one of the questions is whether or not we would extend the education time so people can get the proper credentials. the proper training for a job. Many people have been unemployed now for a couple of years from a job that may not be coming back and the skills they have need to either be updated or they have to learn new skills to get the job thats available in their locality or maybe a ways down the road. Its also interesting that the Business Roundtable is in Washington this week talking about this exact problem: How do we develop those new skills because of the skills mismatch that exists in this country today for hundreds of thousands of jobs that are available. but apparently the skills are not there? Now. I wonder if that skills training so that that person can get a job in a good industry and a good job. what if that takes 13 months as opposed to 12 months or what if it takes 8 months instead of 6 months? Why dont we live with the Governors having the flexibility if they believe thats the economic plan for their arrangement? We see consortiums now. because of the Higher Ed Act. coming togethercommunity colleges. State universities. manufacturing consortiums. employer consortiumsdeveloping the programs to develop the skills for the American workforce. And some of that is inconsistent with the requirements under this law. and thats why Governors who want to move to the future came and asked for that relief. And that waiver authority exists in the Social Security Act. That waiver authority is explicitly for this purpose. But in the name of politics. were going to deny those States that are struggling. those Governors that are struggling. with the ability to do this. And under the rules. as the memorandum has suggested. they would have to show a very substantial increase in moving people from welfare to work. Supposedly. thats the goal of everybody whos a Member of this body. but politics is has overwhelmed that. If you had these concerns. we could have fixed it and moved on with getting people off of welfare to work. But we will leave here with some kind of political statement. a hollow political victory that means nothing except that those people will still be waiting to get off of welfare and go to work. The Governors will still be waiting to implement the program to get them off of welfare and go to work. And the Congress will go home. In the face of the desperate need of these people to acquire these skills to improve their talents. to provide for these families. to feed their kids. to educate them. to provide for health care. the Congress will go home. It wont give the Governors this authority because itll look bad for their Presidential candidate. They wont give the Governors this authority because they can score a point here. Those Governors werent trying to score a point. They were trying to score some jobs. They were trying to score some jobs for their citizens. But political games are going to win out here because the clock is running out on this Congress. So we could have helped those Governors. You could have tweaked this so you could have said you change from what President Obama wanted. and we could have gone on and people could have had opportunity in America. You keep saying youre for it. you just dont get around to providing it. I yield back the balance of my time.