I don't think anybody in America believes the White House doesn't want to do something about that. The President of the United States has talked about it. In every one of his State of the Unions he talked about it. In this State of the Union, he talked about expanding manufacturing and training. So the President has talked about it, all the time about wanting to invest in giving the skills to American workers that they need to either stay employed or get the kind of skilled jobs that are available in our economy, that pay well. There are a number of bills, I will tell the majority leader, in the Make It In America agenda that I would love to work with the majority leader on that deal exactly with that. I have a bill myself--actually, I think somebody else introduced it--called the Jobs bill, which is job opportunities between our shores, which is exactly on point of dealing with advanced manufacturers, community colleges, and other organizations in cooperation with work investment boards to identify what skills are needed, to invest in training. The gentleman is correct, we all want to do that, and we certainly ought to be able to work towards that. He is incorrect in that the President has not only not focused on that, he has worked on that. The Secretary of Labor, Tom Perez, has worked on it; Penny Pritzker, the Secretary of Commerce, is very committed to that end; as is Arne Duncan, the Secretary of Education, and they have all talked about that.…
On the recordFebruary 6, 2014
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