House approves restructuring
of job-training programs

By Cassandra Burrell
Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON, DC (AP) - Giving states more control over the nation's job training programs could help get more people off welfare and breathe new life into efforts that now have questionable worth, lawmakers say.

The House voted 343-60 on Friday to consolidate more than 60 job training, adult education and dislocated worker programs into three new block grants.

Majority Republicans said they were not happy with many government training programs. The restructuring would give states and communities more control and powerful incentives to improve the programs, lawmakers said.

Under the bill, the federal government would distribute money to states from the newly created adult jobs, disadvantaged youth and adult education block grants. The Congressional Budget Office has estimated the bill would cost an additional $1.8 billion over the next five years over what the government now spends on those programs.

The bill would require states to develop benchmarks and goals to evaluate the performance of the block grants, provide incentive grants to states that increase literacy and reduce unemployment, and sanction states that do not.

``This bill will significantly enhance the ability of states and local areas to effectively implement welfare reform, focusing on moving welfare recipients from welfare to work,'' said Rep. William Goodling, R-Pa., a bill co-sponsor and chairman of the House's Education and the Workforce Committee.

The measure now goes to the Senate.

Supporters said the bill would allow participants to purchase training services with vouchers and require youth programs to focus more on longer-term academic and occupational training, ``on getting young people back to school rather than stand-alone, short-term employment fixes.''

The Clinton administration praised the bill, saying that although President Clinton doesn't agree with all of its provisions, it includes many of the principles found in his own plan.

``The new system embodied in (the bill), based on a firm foundation of individual opportunity, empowerment and improved performance information, represents a good first step toward improved accountability to taxpayers,'' the Office of Management and Budget said in a written statement.

Critics have said the bill could jeopardize successful programs, including one that provides summer jobs to teen-agers.

During debate on the House floor, some Republicans questioned the value of government job training programs. Nothing in the Constitution requires them, Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, said.

``Should we be involved at all if we tried it for 30 years and it's not working?'' Paul said. ``When will we ask ourselves, `Should we be in the business of job training?' ... We have no evidence that this approach will work. Most likely this will be just a bureaucratic adjustment.''

Rep. Henry Hyde, R-Ill., chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, agreed, saying he was especially troubled by a provision in the bill's adult education section that would provide training for parents on how to teach their children.

``I just cannot support the bill,'' he said. ``I think that moves awfully far behind job training to teach parents how to be parents.''

But Goodling said restructuring the programs will make them more effective.

``I agree that existing problems do not work,'' Goodling said. ``If we do not make an attempt to reform them, those existing programs will go on and on. ... So the attempt is trying to do something that will give programs a chance to work.''

The House and the Senate passed similar bills last year, but never completed work to reconcile their differences.