Date: 2013-03-15
Speaker: GEORGE MILLER (democrat)
Chamber: H
State: California

I yield myself 4 minutes. Madam Chair. the House today is considering Republican legislation that reauthorizes the Workforce Investment Act. Rewriting the Workforce Investment Act is an important task. and it should be taken seriously. It should be an opportunity to address some significant challenges in our economy. including how to educate and train a diverse workforce with the skills required to compete in a global market. For 40 years. this task has been taken seriously by Members of both parties. Job training legislation was generally bipartisan. So I wish we were here to present a bipartisan bill on the floor. I wish we were here to discuss the product of months of bipartisan negotiations. I wish we were here to consider getting something done for the American people. But thats not the point of todays exercise. Today. we are here to meet a deadline set by the majority leader as part of a rebranding strategy. This bill is a political product. It puts ideology over practical solutions and evidencebased reforms. It fails to take a thoughtful approach to what our workers and businesses need. It decisively walks away from the programs mission of helping our most disadvantaged workers. That is why I oppose this bill. First. the bill eliminates and consolidates programs simply for the sake of elimination and consolidation. The populations served by these programs often face daunting challenges in the job market. Youth. older workers. farm workers. workers with disabilities. Englishlanguage learners. veterans and lowincome workers are among those who face the greatest barriers to employment. Yet. programs that serve these populations are the very programs targeted by the Republicans. Even worse. the bill eliminates the directive requiring these poorest workers to be given priority of service. With limited money. hardtoserve populations will be left out in the cold. And we have yet to hear any credible evidence that eliminating these programs will save taxpayer money. We have yet to hear any credible evidence that these programs are duplicative. nor have we heard credible evidence that this approach will make the system work better. In fact. the Government Accountability Office warned that this onesizefitsall approach may make services less accessible to the many groups considered hard to serve. Second. the bill restructures the workforce system in a way that locks out key stakeholders and leaves the system vulnerable to favoritism. The legislation arbitrarily mandates that workforce boards increase business participation of the board from 51 percent to 67 percent. This will allow people in power to lock out key stakeholders. including labor. communitybased organizations. community colleges. or people who work with youth or workers with disabilities. These stakeholders know how to get training to the people. And they provide a voice for the very people who need training and the very people looking for work. The Republican bill will also allow Governors to remove local control so that local communities wont be able to direct their own workforce systems. Yet local communities working with local businesses. workers. and other organizations know best how to respond to their economic needs. Finally. the Republican bill essentially turns funding into a block grant and freezes authorization levels for 6 years. We all know that this is a code word for cutting funding. Thats what the Republicans have been doing in the CR. and thats what the Republicans have been doing in sequestration. The Democrats have a different version. We agree that the current system is in need of significant reform. So dont believe the other side who falsely say that we want the status quo. The system should be improved in ways to maintain our Nations commitment to expand opportunity for all Americans. We want to make job training programs more efficient and more effective. This can be accomplished by requiring unified plans that streamline and coordinate these services. Democrats want to ensure real accountability so everyone knows which programs work and which programs dont work. Finally. we want to promote innovation in the workforce system by fully engaging community colleges. This can be done by ensuring that there are resources for community colleges to effectively respond to economic challenges and to meet future industry needs. This should be Congress way forward to strengthen the workforce investment system. Congress should not be dismantling the system and leaving those who need help the most at the back of the line. Im disappointed that we have reached this point on this very important topic. For months. the Democrats have extended a hand to work together with the Republican majority. I reserve the balance of my time.