Brandon Williams: “this bill is not about change; it is about retreat. Anybody listening would be confused about whether we are spending…”

“this bill is not about change; it is about retreat. Anybody listening would be confused about whether we are spending more or less. Here are letters from America's mayors, Republicans and Democrats that say, do not do it. Do not do this to job training. Do not do this to summer youth. Why? Because they know we are spending less. We are sending them less, Republicans and Democratic mayors alike. If we are to remain competitive in the world marketplace, we need to make sure that our workers, yes, including the new workers that will come on into the workplace market, have the skills necessary to move ahead. This is a terrible bill. For my State of Montana it would be devastating. We would reduce adult training funding in my State in this bill, reduce it by more than $1,500,000. The bill will reduce youth training funds to go to my State by close to $4 million. It eliminates every single dollar of summer youth program for the State of Montana and for every other State in this country. The chairman on the Republican side might say that is not a cut, to go from what we spend today to zero next summer. The chairman would be wrong. Finally, let me tell Members this: I serve along with the good chairman, the gentleman from California [Mr. McKeon], a Republican chairman, of the committee that has redesigned the Job Training Partnership Act. In a bipartisan way we agreed to a 20-percent cut in job training funds. That is not what this bill does.”