Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, March 10, 1994 TAG: 9403100178
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Medium
At a White House ceremony, Clinton urged Congress to spend $13 billion over five years to consolidate more than 150 federal jobs programs that are operated by 24 agencies.
``The existing system for unemployment and training is simply broken in the sense that it was designed for an economy that no longer exists,'' Clinton said. ``It was designed basically just to hold people ... until their old jobs came back.''
Some Republicans were skeptical. Sen. Nancy Kassebaum of Kansas, the ranking GOP member of the Senate Labor and Human Resources Committee, called Clinton's plan ``only a gesture, and an expensive one at that, towards reforming the federal job-training system.''
Clinton wants the government to identify those unlikely to get their old jobs back and refer them to counseling and retraining programs.
Federal statistics show three of four workers laid off in 1993 did not expect to get their jobs back.
Extended jobless benefits - up to 18 months - would be provided for displaced workers learning new skills. Those deciding to open their own businesses could receive benefits while the new enterprises got off the ground.
The legislation also would allow community colleges and other local groups to compete with government-run programs for federal dollars to retrain dislocated workers.
``The existing training system, as the members of Congress know, is a crazy quilt of separate programs that too often puts bureaucracy first and leaves the customers, the unemployed workers, bewildered,'' Clinton said.
Labor Secretary Robert Reich said $11 billion of the program's cost would be in federal discretionary spending while the remaining $2 billion would be mandatory spending.
by CNB