Political Quotes

“Mr. Speaker, I thank Mr. Morelle for yielding me the customary 30 minutes, and I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, today's rule provides for consideration of two pieces of legislation. The first, H.R. 447, is the National Apprenticeship Act. The bill seeks to improve and streamline access to apprenticeships. These goals are broadly supported by Members on both sides of the political aisle, in the House and in the Senate. We considered an almost identical bill in the 116th Congress, which was the previous Congress. At that time, Republicans expressed a desire to work together to achieve the goal of modernizing the National Apprenticeship Program. Since then, the Democrats have pushed through their bill that did nothing to streamline the program, nothing for flexibility for employer-driven apprenticeships. The bill before us today is largely the same. Rather than work with Republicans in a meaningful way, the majority remains committed to codifying decades of rigid regulations and red tape. The Committee on Education and Labor did not even have a hearing or a markup on this bill before it came before the Committee on Rules, essentially shutting out committee Republicans from the negotiation process entirely--many of whom were new members on the Committee on Education and Labor and did not participate in the discussion in the last Congress. Mr. Speaker, between 2009 and 2019, America saw a 128 percent growth in apprenticeships.…”