This hearing cuts to the heart of why postsecondary education reform is necessary and why it is so difficult to accomplish. It’s necessary because college is so increasingly expensive. For decades, tuition and fees have risen higher than the cost of inflation. Because costs have always varied between different types of institutions, it’s often hard to know what option would provide the best value ... Read more »
Today, the Committee on Education and Labor convened a bipartisan hearing to examine the high cost of college and ways to enact student-centered reforms. During the hearing, witness testimony made it clear that the high cost of college does not exist in a vacuum. In order to drive downward pressure on rising tuition expenses, it’s important to analyze how college costs are interconnected to other ... Read more »
Thank you for yielding. I’d like to thank my colleagues across the aisle for holding today’s hearing. Before coming to Congress, I served as Kentucky’s Agriculture Commissioner where I worked with school food service personnel from school districts across the commonwealth to promote initiatives including the Farm to School Program, encouraging fresh, “Kentucky Proud” foods to be served in local ca... Read more »
Free and reduced-priced meals offered through federal school meal programs are an important way to support kids’ healthy development and ensure that students from low-income households have access to nutritious breakfasts and lunches while at school. School meals must be healthy and nutrient-rich, but it’s important to ensure that the program remains effective and kids like what’s being served. In... Read more »
On International Women's Day, we're celebrating the women who have impacted the world. Watch as Republican Leader Virginia Foxx (R-NC) shares about the strong women who made a difference in her life. To watch, click here. Read more »
Thank you for yielding. The looming insolvency of the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation’s (PBGC) multiemployer insurance program is one of the greatest challenges facing American workers who participate in multiemployer pension plans. Collectively, 95 percent of multiemployer plan participants are in plans that are less than 60 percent funded. This large-scale breakdown of the multiemployer pla... Read more »
At a subcommittee hearing on multiemployer pensions, members on both sides of the aisle came together to discuss the severe challenges facing the multiemployer pension system and the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC). “Extreme levels of plan underfunding are an urgent concern. Workers and retirees must have peace of mind when it comes to their hard-earned retirement benefits and employer... Read more »
What happened to liberal pragmatism? Truly, I’m asking: what happened to it? In the past, I could appreciate the positions of my colleagues across the aisle, and I understood their reasoning for much of the legislation they proposed. I disagreed with many of those proposals, but the arguments followed some degree of logic. There is no logic in this legislation. We’re here to mark up a socialist ca... Read more »
Today, Committee Democrats held a markup on H.R. 582, the Raise the Wage Act. If enacted, this legislation to more than double the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour will result in millions of job losses for vulnerable Americans, small business closures, and significant losses to the U.S. economy. During the markup, Republican Leader Virginia Foxx (R-NC) said: “H.R. 582 will hammer small business... Read more »
By Eric Morath and Lauren Weber - Friday, March 1, 2019 The job market doesn’t get much better than this. The U.S. economy has added jobs for 100 consecutive months. Unemployment recently touched its lowest level in 49 years. Workers are so scarce that, in many parts of the country, low-skill jobs are being handed out to pretty much anyone willing to take them—and high-skilled workers are in even... Read more »
