Bill Archer: “Mr. Speaker, this clearly is an unfunded mandate on State and local government. It is the very thing that this Congress…”

“Mr. Speaker, this clearly is an unfunded mandate on State and local government. It is the very thing that this Congress overwhelmingly passed a law to prevent last year. It will significantly increase the cost of State and local government. If the Federal Government is to do that by its own legislation, it has an obligation to reimburse the State and local governments. That is not mandatory that we do that, but we took the position that it was inappropriate for us to do that. That is why we are having this debate today, because of the unfunded mandate legislation that was passed and signed into law by the President last year. In addition, it places an unfunded mandate of unquantified amount on employers, which was also part of the law that we passed on a bipartisan basis and signed by the President of the United States last year. CBO estimates that the potential loss of jobs will range, will reduce the employment level of teenagers and a smaller percentage reduction of young adults, reducing by a half a percent to 2 percent in the employment level of those types of individuals.”