Rae Oliver Davis: “I thank the chairman for yielding. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of H.R. 3630, and tire of the empty rhetoric that I…”

“I thank the chairman for yielding. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of H.R. 3630, and tire of the empty rhetoric that I hear over and over again. As the chairman just pointed out, this bill includes many provisions that your party's President recommended. This is a bipartisan piece of legislation, and we are politicizing something at the expense of working families, which is a sad thing to see happen in this Chamber. The legislation includes important provisions designed to promote job creation; but I would like to focus on the bill's provisions to reform and improve unemployment insurance, or UI. These commonsense reforms expect UI recipients to search for work and to make progress towards a GED or other training they need to get back to work. We let States make reasonable exceptions, but the message is clear: UI needs to change to do a better job of helping people get back to work. The bill also lets States apply for waivers of Federal law so they can test better ways to engage the unemployed. Our colleagues are right--there are too many long-term unemployed today, and we need to hold government programs more accountable for helping more of them find work sooner, including through wage subsidies and other innovative approaches that have received bipartisan support.…”