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Remarks as Prepared
National League of Cities Congressional City
Conference
Washington Hilton Hotel
Washington, D.C.
March 10,
2003
Thank you, Charles [Lyons, Selectman, Arlington, Massachusetts and
First Vice President, National League of Cities].
It’s great to be here and to have the opportunity to address this
tremendous gathering of our nation’s city, county and municipal leaders In
these challenging times, you are truly the first responders on so many
important issues—keeping our homeland safe, our social safety net strong
and our economy vibrant.
Today, I want to share with you some of the great things this
Administration is doing to help you meet these challenges. I’d like to
briefly outline some of our proposals to create more jobs, strengthen the
workforce and prepare our young people for careers in the 21st
century economy.
As leaders of local governments, you know the human face of the economy
better than anyone else. As you know, our economy started slowing down in the
summer of 2000. The stock market peaked in February 2000, the manufacturing
sector began to hit the doldrums in August 2000, and this Administration came
into office to face three quarters of negative growth. Our economy began to
tick upward, but then the devastating attacks of September 11th
occurred, in which 1.5 million jobs were lost. Despite these blows, the economy
has started to grow again—but there are still too many people who want to
work but can’t find jobs.
That’s why the President has proposed an aggressive plan to
strengthen the economic growth that has started—and help those who are
still looking for work.
By accelerating tax relief for every American who pays taxes, an
additional $52 billion will be injected into the private economy. That means
more money in the pockets of 92 million Americans—to buy goods and
services in your communities. The resulting spending and investment stimulus
will create 1.4 million new jobs by the end of 2004.
We want to eliminate the double-taxation of dividends, which all by
itself will create a third of the new jobs this plan will contribute to the
American economy. And it’s good for corporate governance, too, which is
key to restoring trust in our nation’s financial institutions and boosting
markets. And it’s good for the small businesses in particular.
They’re the engines of job creation in your communities and they will
benefit from the growth incentives and new investment capital created by the
President’s proposals.
And we want to give an extra boost to those who are at risk of being
unemployed for a longer period, by offering them Personal Reemployment
Accounts.
I’m proud to say that the Labor Department played a leading role in
crafting this initiative, which is built around the public workforce investment
system in your communities. These accounts provide $3,000 to unemployed workers
having the most difficulty finding jobs and will be administered through our
One Stop Career Center network in your communities.
Under the President’s proposal, an eligible worker will be able to
custom design his or her own training. He or she will be able to purchase the
supportive services needed to return to work quickly, including training,
counseling, skills assessment, transportation, child care and even re-location
expenses if necessary. We believe this can be crucial in helping working
families—particularly those headed by single mothers—return to the
workforce. And workers who return to work within 13 weeks will be able to keep
the balances in their personal re-employment accounts—an added incentive
to re-enter the job market quickly.
The President’s proposal builds on the work we have been doing at
the Department of Labor for the past two years to modernize our workforce
investment system. For too long, that system has been a hidden secret—a
resource that was all but unknown to many employers who have jobs to fill.
Everywhere I go, employers constantly tell me they are having difficulty
finding workers with the rights skills for the jobs they have to offer. For
example, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reports there is a critical national
shortage of health care workers, including a shortage of one million nurses
over the next 10 years. As our population ages, worker shortages in health care
will become even more acute. This dilemma is just one example of the
opportunities that exist for us to train workers for good jobs on a solid
career path.
That’s why we have been working with stakeholders to transform the
culture of the workforce investment system into a pro-active one. Workers need
to be trained for real jobs in the real world, not just processed through a
system. Employers need to be included, so we know where the new jobs are and
what skills are in demand. There have been past successes, with One Stops
bringing new jobs and new hope to their communities through aggressive outreach
and recruiting services. But we want to create more success stories all across
the country, in your cities, towns and municipalities.
Fortunately, there is a wonderful opportunity for us this year to
achieve the goal of a demand-driven, pro-active workforce development
system—the reauthorization of the Workforce Investment Act of 1998.
I’d like to share our five goals for reforming and modernizing this
important workforce development tool.
First, we would work to strengthen the governance of the
system by streamlining the local workforce investment boards to make them more
effective and more efficient.
Second, we want to support more comprehensive operations
of our One Stop Career Centers. That means creating a new way to fund One-Stop
infrastructure costs at the federal and state level, which will reduce the
burden on you, the local governments.
Third, we want to better target adult services by
consolidating funding streams into one network to increase state and local
flexibility and customer accessibility.
Fourth, we want to ensure greater accountability by
focusing on the most important outcomes and eliminating burdensome and
duplicative requirements, which discourages potentially attractive partners
such as community colleges from engaging our workforce development system.
And fifth, we want to better serve at-risk youth by
targeting services to those most in need: school dropouts, court-involved youth
and young people transitioning out of foster care.
Preparing our adult workforce for the challenges of the 21st
century economy is one of my highest priorities. But—as your conference
has so aptly stated—children are our future. And investment in our youth
and their future in the workforce is one of the most important things we can do
to ensure that our country remains strong.
That’s why this Administration has proposed Youth Challenge Grants
as part of our package of reforms to the Workforce Investment Act. We believe
that funds for WIA youth programs are currently spread too thinly across the
country. Their effectiveness in helping at risk young people has been a matter
of some discussion.
Under our reform proposal, the Department of Labor would reserve $250
million of WIA youth program funds for Challenge Grants. These grants would be
targeted to cities and rural areas experiencing unique youth development needs.
To be eligible for these funds, grantees will be asked to demonstrate linkages
with viable partners. They will be asked to recruit financial support from a
variety of sources—including the education and business communities. And
they must include best practices as part of their program design. These
criteria will help you leverage important community resources on behalf of our
young people.
We believe these grants will provide us with pilot experiences to test
and develop improvements in the larger WIA youth grants program. We’ve
designed this proposal specifically in response to your requests for program
flexibility. Among other things, you will be able to use these resources
to fund summer jobs programs for youth. So I look forward to working
with you on this proposal, which we believe will strengthen our WIA youth
programs and deliver critical assistance to those most in need.
With these changes, the workforce investment system can become a
powerful tool to extend the promise of the American dream to every working
family.
So thank you for inviting me here today and thank you for everything you
are doing to keep our people and our country strong, safe and living in a free
and democratic society.
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