Burgess Owens: “I want to ask the gentleman if he was aware of the fact that the CRS figures which show the funding pattern for the…”

“I want to ask the gentleman if he was aware of the fact that the CRS figures which show the funding pattern for the youth training programs other than summer youth, which we were talking about before, which was badly needed, and the gentleman said they were badly needed, and I agree. But they have been reduced by almost three-quarters, from 676.7 million in 1993 to the present proposed funding of 126.7 million. They have been reduced steadily. At the same time, because we came on this floor and we fought for the Summer Youth Employment Program, even though people in government, State governments, did not consider it important, they have raised the amount of funding for some youth employment. So what we are going to have is the unpopularity of the summer youth training programs year-round, resulting in not having adequate funding. So they will take the funding away from summer youth. That is the simple problem we worried about, that they are going to drain the funds from the summer youth because the discretion is going to be in the hands of people. We do not care about summer youth in our cities; they will find somewhere else to spend them in the States.”