Nancy Kassebaum: “when I assumed the chairmanship of the Senate Labor and Human Resources Committee last year, one of my top priorities…”

“when I assumed the chairmanship of the Senate Labor and Human Resources Committee last year, one of my top priorities was to bring to fruition a comprehensive reform of our many job training programs. My colleague in that effort on the other side of the aisle is the Senator from Nebraska, Senator Kerrey, who has been a stalwart supporter of this effort. We both felt strongly there was much that could be done that would significantly improve and enhance Federal job training programs. Over the past several years, the General Accounting Office, the inspector general, the Department of Labor, and others, have churned out report after report documenting both the proliferation of Federal job training efforts and the inability of these programs to show results. The roughly $5 billion which the Federal Government invests in these programs is small potatoes in our annual trillion-dollar-plus budget. The work of these programs are not front-page news, and the issues they raise are probably regarded as boring and tedious. Mr. President, nevertheless, the Workforce Development Act, which was approved by a vote of 95 to 2, offered an ideal opportunity to find ways to make Government work better.”