Back to Work Incentive Act

BACK TO WORK INCENTIVE ACT OF 2003 -- (House of Representatives - June 03, 2004)

Mr. BOEHNER. Mr. Speaker, pursuant to House Resolution 656, I call up the bill (H.R. 444) to amend the Workforce Investment Act of 1998 to establish a Personal Reemployment Accounts grant program to assist Americans in returning to work, and ask for its immediate consideration in the House.

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Mr. KILDEE. Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong opposition to H.R. 444, and I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Speaker, this bill completely misses the mark. American workers need job creation. American workers also need extended unemployment benefits. This sour economy has lost 2 million jobs since President Bush took office. This bill does nothing to address these issues, the most pressing facing our workforce today. Instead, H.R. 444 creates an untested and risky job-training voucher scheme.

This voucher scheme cuts off workers from regular job-training benefits when they accept a PRA. This legislation also demeans workers by assuming that those receiving unemployment benefits need a financial lure to go back to work.
I am not sure about other congressional districts, but unemployed workers in Flint, Michigan, my hometown, and other areas of Michigan do not need an incentive to find work. They are in desperate search of work right now. They do not need an incentive to be able to afford their mortgage or to provide for their family. They need jobs.

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I am surprised there are those in this body that think that American workers need a financial incentive to find a job. The real story behind this bill is that it simply fails to address the most pressing needs of the American worker. It is a sham.
Let us look at the real problems facing the American worker. Two million jobs have been lost since the beginning of the Bush administration, 8.2 million individuals are unemployed, 1.5 million workers have exhausted their unemployment benefits, wages have barely kept up with inflation, and this bill does nothing to address these problems.
Substantive help for American workers lies in an initiative to create jobs and to extend unemployment insurance. Yet this Republican Congress and the Bush administration has continually failed to address these needs. The last extension of UI benefits ran out late last year. Despite some meager job growth in the past few months, we remain two million jobs in the hole since the beginning of the Bush administration. The Republican answer to these problems is a pilot project for job training vouchers.

This bill brings no new resources to help American workers. Instead, it would steal funding from other proven job training programs. How could this respond to the needs of the American workers?

In closing, Mr. Speaker, I urge Members to oppose this bill. We need real-world solutions to real-world problems, not unfunded, untested legislation which will not address the true needs of the American worker.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

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Mr. KILDEE. Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the ranking member of the committee, the gentleman from California (Mr. George Miller).

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding and for his handling of this bill for the minority on the floor and his work on it in the committee.

And the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Kildee) is quite right. We should oppose this bill. I have to say that I think my colleagues on the other side of the aisle are simply describing a bill that is not before us, because they talk about this as being supplemental and providing flexibility to the unemployed worker.

Now, clearly, we would like to do that, because we have 8 million unemployed individuals in this country. We have 90,000 people who are exhausting their unemployment benefits a week in this country who still have not been unable to find employment, who are in desperate straits. So, clearly, there is a need for what they are describing.

But let us understand something. What they are describing in terms of flexibility is already available in the law under the WIA bill that we are in the process of reauthorizing. They can provide you child care stipends if it helps you take advantage of a computer training program or a program at the community college or a program of a collaborative in your community. They can provide you a transportation voucher to get to that program if that is what is necessary.
That is why we designed the law that way, because we know that the unemployed come to these programs, and their needs are varied. Some people have automobiles, and some people do not. Some people have access to transportation, and some people do not. Their child care came with the job, and now they have lost it. That is why we built in that flexibility in the current program.

What this says is if you go for the bait on the hook, which is a grant, that could be up to $3,000, you are then prohibited from participating in those programs unless you take the $3,000 or the $500 or the $700. Because at $3,000 you are only going to take care of 16,000 people. We have 90,000 people who are losing their unemployment benefits a week. But if you take the $500, you then have to pay for the programs that are currently available to you in your community under the WIA act for free.

What is the deal here, folks? You are no better off. It is not supplemental. You have just lost your eligibility to what may be very good, comprehensive training programs.

In my community, industry is coming to community colleges and to the work incentive force all of the time to say we would like to structure a program in the community to provide us X number of people in biotechnology and high technology and refining business, whatever it is. That is the needs in our community.

You take this $500 voucher, you lose the eligibility to go to those programs. This is neither flexible nor supplemental. It takes away what people now have available to them. And if you took this $50 million, which obviously, given the President's memo on 2006, is going to be cut from other job training programs, if you added $50 million, you could provide much more child care to those individuals who need that to participate in retraining and to get ready for the next employment opportunity or need transportation costs covered so they can get to the community college or they can get to the training program or to the licensure program, whatever it is they choose. That is all available in law today.
The Republicans have said this is Career Week. This is Career Week in the United States House of Representatives. The only career we keep dealing with is legislation that doesn't do anything. We are making a career out of providing answers that do not answer the questions that workers are asking. We have got to stop this.

We ought to get on with the WIA bill. We ought to get it reauthorized. We ought to make sure that the funding is there so that all of the flexibility that is in that law can be utilized by the 8 million American workers who are looking for jobs in this economy and have been unable to find them.

So I would hope that my colleagues would join the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Kildee) and vote against this legislation, understanding that this is harmful and, in fact, it will subtract from the total job training package that this government is making available to those unemployed and to their families.

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Mr. PORTER. Mr. Speaker, I would like to address the top five false claims that we have heard today about H.R. 444 with some of the facts.

False claim number 5: a reemployment bonus cannot motivate workers to find jobs that do not exist. The truth: as Republicans, our tax and growth programs over the past year have created 1.1 million new jobs, 625,000 coming in March and April. These job opportunities are becoming more available, and we have to ensure that those chronically unemployed have the new tools and new skills to face this new economy.

False claim number 4: PRAs do not provide workers with greater flexibility. Rather, if workers choose a PRA, they would be prohibited from using WIA services for a full year. Mr. Speaker, the truth: reemployment accounts provide the unemployed with a means of developing an individual specific plan for regaining employment. The prohibition against WIA services is to prevent double dipping. I think that is appropriate.

False claim number 3: PRAs will be used as an excuse to not extend the Temporary Emergency Unemployment Compensation Program. The truth, Mr. Speaker: Republicans have consistently supported extending unemployment benefits. These PRAs are a supplemental approach to benefits and represent one more way that Republicans are using to help Americans find new jobs and get back to work quickly.

False claim number 2: reemployment accounts come at the expense of other WIA job training and employment programs. The truth, Mr. Speaker: while appropriators will ultimately determine the allocation of these dollars, the funding for PRAs will flow through the discretionary fund of demonstration projects, not the funds used for other services.

False claim number 1 on the top of the list: H.R. 444 would restrict, rather than expand, the amount of job training and other reemployment services. Mr. Speaker, Republicans have prioritized funding for job training. Reemployment accounts are a voluntary program that allows for personalized and streamlined reemployment services. No one is forced to use the account, and the purpose of the legislation is to provide the most effective use of funds for the unemployed.
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Again, I encourage strong support for H.R. 444.

Mr. KILDEE. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from California (Mr. George Miller).

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, I want to say to the gentleman from Nevada (Mr. Porter) that he ought to read the bill, because truth and facts are about what the language of the bill says.

If you read on line 16, page 15, "For the 1-year period following the establishment of the account, recipients may not receive intensive, supportive, or training services funded under this title except for the fee-for-services basis."

The gentleman obviously has not read the bill. That means that you either pay for it with the stipend the gentleman says he wants to give them, which provides them no additional new services, no flexibility. So do not stand up here and talk about facts or truth. Read the bill. Read the bill, and the gentleman will find out what he is doing is denying them the services that are already available to them today.