Date: 1981-04-01
Speaker: ROBERT C. BYRD (democrat)
Chamber: S

Mr. President. I believe there is a shortsighted view implicit in many of the budget cuts in education. unemployment. training. and economic development programs proposed In this reconciliation bill. Senators may disagree as to the effectiveness of many of these programs. However. we should recognize that. while many of the programs may be justifiably reduced or eliminated. the real economic problems they were designed to address will not disappear. Reducing durrent Department of Labor commitments to training from $9.5 to $4.6 billion. as contemplated in the reconciliation resolution. will not reduce the growing population of publicly dependent youth and adults. Programs may disappear but our economic problems will not. According to the Congressional Budget Office. every 1percent increase in the rate of unemployment can add anywhere from $20 to $3 billion to the Federal deficit in the form of lost revenues and uncontrollable income maintenance costs. According to a recent Department of Labor study. the general skill level of the American labor force has fallen dramatically while the skill levels of competitor nations have been rising. The Conference Board reports that 35 percent of private sector companies now must provide remedial instruction in reading. writing. and arithmetic. Moreover. while it Is true that the American economy is providing a remarkable number of new jobs every year. it is also evident from analysis of those jobs that they are concentrated in lowskill lowwage occupations. The gap between available skill jobs and skilled workers is increasingly evident. We see more and more statistics that demonstrate severe skill shortages among American workers. In a statement to the press. on March 16. the President noted that he had found 331/2 pages of want ads in the Sunday. March 15 Washington Post. The President seemed to imply that people prefer unemployment to those listed jobs. According to the American Vocational Association. closer analysis reveals that at least 1.900 of the advertised job required some specialized institutional training. Approximately 85 percent required institutional training of 1 year or more. There is little need to reiterate the litany of alltoofamiliar statistics on the depressed state of American productivity. I would proffer one observation. however: Many claim that American economic preeminence in the 1940s and 1950s occurred without supporting policies and programs. They argue that policies to encourage productivity are therefore not necessary now. First. I would respond that changes in both our national economy and the success of our competitors argue against that view. Second. and more Importantly. I would point out that even if we succeed in recreating the socalled golden age of American productivity growth. that would be insufficient. over the long run. to keep up with our international competitors. In the golden age of American productivity our rate of productivity increase averaged 3.2 percent. Our competitors have consistently more than doubled that rate. The past is not good enough: We need policies and programs that promote a productive and mobile labor force if we are to maintain our economic preeminence. . In addition to cuts in education and training programs. the proposed reconciliation bill eliminates over 20 percent of economic development spending. I would caution my colleagues that geographic imbalances in growth and decline are accelerating at alarming rates. Finally. we may all agree that the current trade adjustment program provides too much income maintenance and too little retraining and relocation. Retraining and relocation policies remain necessary. however. if we are to avoid rampant protectionism. Moreover. such cuts seem doubly unwise at a time when massive new budgetary coaunitments in defense and energy spending will create shortages of skilled labor in some regions while experienced workers remain underutilized in declining areas. Some kind of training and retraining policies would seem to make sense in an economy that is simultaneously experiencing manpower shortages and a general -geographic mismatch between work opportunities and available workers. It shduld be clear that I do not necessarily support continued funding for every education. employment. training and economic development program scheduled for cuts or elimination in this reconciliation bill. I do support the continuing commitment of Federal resources to remedy our current economic malaise. I do not take issue with critics who Point out that. as presently written. some of these programs provide more make work than meaningful work. But we cannot create programs that will work without budgetary commitment. We do need new policies that encourage Productivity and economic growth. But these policies cannot be implemented without available budgetary resources. I caution my colleagues that shortterm economies In our investment in a productive workforce are illusory. The alternative to employment and training policies targeted on the employability of the disadvantaged is greater public dependency and ever higher income maintenance costs. The alternative to policies that retrain and relocate experienced workers is a wasting away of our experienced work force. The alternative to effective education policies is a continued decline in the skill level and productivity of the American work force. The alternative to effective economic development policies is an acceleration of the current imbalances in area development. I support this amendment as one that allows us to carry forward our commitment to the resolution of our economic problems. .