Political Quotes

“Mr. McKEON. Mr. Chairman, in 1998 we joined together in a bipartisan fashion to pass the Workforce Investment Act. We had 150 Federal job training programs, and that did not work. We cut it down to 60. We took those 60 Federal programs and block granted them out to the States and in that legislation set up the one-stop shops. The regulations were finally written in about 2000. The one-stops have been set up. They are starting to do their job. This bill now gives us a chance to take the final three programs we were not able to consolidate last time, consolidates them, gives more money to the local areas, gives more authority and responsibility to the local areas. The one-stops that I visited with the local governments boards are doing a great job. We need to give them additional help. That is what we do in this bill. It is unfortunate, as we can see from this debate, that we were unable to do this bipartisan. It was not our choice. We had the committee. We gave everybody the opportunity. We had full debates on a lot of the things that they are complaining about now, and we won on committee votes. It is important now that we really think about the workers and how we can help them and get this bill passed.”