Today’s hearing is our second opportunity in recent months to examine the multiemployer pension system. In June, we discussed broadly the policies governing the system and its structural challenges. Since that hearing, news reports have reminded us of the problems plaguing many pension plans and the need for reforms that will help promote a stronger system. Hostess Brands, an iconic American compa... Read more »
The bill before us will take a small yet important step toward greater efficiency in federal construction contracting. For more than eighty years, federal contractors have been required to pay workers the ‘locally prevailing wage.’ Additionally, since 1961 those same workers have been entitled to one and a half times their basic rate of pay for every hour worked that exceeds 40 hours per week. Whi... Read more »
I rise today in strong support of H.J.Res. 118, a resolution disapproving the Obama administration’s attempt to roll back successful welfare reforms. The resolution we are considering today is quite simple. It preserves bipartisan policies that serve low-income families, and reins in this latest example of executive overreach by the Obama administration. In 1996, a Republican Congress worked with ... Read more »
The 2008 reauthorization of the Higher Education Act included several provisions aimed at improving transparency in higher education. For the first time, institutions were required to make information about higher education pricing and financial aid more readily available to students and families. Additionally, the reauthorization encouraged colleges and universities to provide the federal governm... Read more »
I appreciate the opportunity to testify in support of H.J.Res. 118, legislation that will stop the Obama administration’s effort to roll back successful welfare reforms. The Government Accountability Office has determined the administration’s waiver plan is a rule and subject to congressional review. That is precisely what we are trying to do. This joint resolution embodies two important principle... Read more »
Today, the committee will consider H. J. Res. 118, a resolution disapproving President Obama’s effort to roll back the work requirement critical to the success of welfare reform. President Clinton once said of welfare, “From now on, our nation’s answer to this great challenge will no longer be a never-ending cycle of welfare, it will be the dignity, the power, and the ethic of work.” Those words w... Read more »
This hearing comes at an appropriate time as the debate over rising college costs rightly continues to garner national attention. President Obama has traveled the country in recent months promising students and families that his administration is working to lower college costs. This past weekend, the president told an audience in Florida “millions of students are paying less for college today” tha... Read more »
We continue to learn a great deal through this committee’s oversight of the National Labor Relations Board. We have learned the NLRB is utterly determined to advance a culture of union favoritism, regardless of the costs imposed on workers and employers or the damage inflicted on its own credibility. We’ve learned a growing number of courts are rejecting the NLRB’s policies. Just last week, a fede... Read more »
Over the last year, this committee has taken action on numerous occasions to defend the rights of workers and employers from the harmful agenda of the National Labor Relations Board. Most notably, we have passed legislation that would prohibit the NLRB from dictating the location of American businesses and advanced a bill that would preserve long-standing union election procedures that protect emp... Read more »
I want to first thank my colleague from Iowa, Congressman Tom Latham, for introducing this important legislation. Representative Latham is a long-time advocate for farmers and his leadership in Congress is greatly appreciated. According to a report on MLive.com, a news site from my home state of Michigan, parts of the country are experiencing the worst drought in more than twenty years. Jim Spink,... Read more »
