This week, the House Committee on Education and the Workforce examined the Workforce Investment Improvement Act of 2012 (H.R. 4297), important job training reform legislation introduced by Reps. Virginia Foxx (R-NC), Buck McKeon (R-CA), and Joe Heck (R-NV). As Chairman John Kline (R-MN) noted, the bill will create a “more dynamic, effective, and accountable workforce development system.” In the vi... Read more »
President Obama is in Ohio today to “highlight his Administration’s job training initiatives.” No doubt the people of the Buckeye State will be asking: Just what is the president promoting this time? There are a number of “initiatives” to choose from: Initiative A: The 2011 so-called American Jobs Act plan, which demands two more programs and $9 billion in new spending be added to the more than 47... Read more »
Dear Inspector General Berry: I respectfully ask you to commence an investigation to determine whether Acting General Counsel Lafe Solomon or his staff made any prohibited ex parte communications regarding the Boeing case, 19-CA-32431. Any such allegation must be investigated to ensure parties’ rights are protected. As you know, 29 CFR 102.126 prohibits an interested person outside this agency fr... Read more »
Just moments before President Obama signed into law his government takeover of health care, he promised: “This legislation will also lower costs… for the federal government, reducing our deficit by over $1 trillion in the next two decades. It is paid for. It is fiscally responsible.” Not so says a new report released this morning by George Mason University’s Mercatus Center. According to an analys... Read more »
THE PROBLEM: The federal government administers roughly 47 job training programs across nine agencies. Many of these programs overlap, and few have been evaluated for efficacy. This unwieldy system makes it more difficult for workers to access important job skills and assistance, and fails employers who seek a highly trained workforce. During his 2012 State of the Union address, President Obama r... Read more »
Yesterday, Education Secretary Arne Duncan testified before the House Committee on Education and the Workforce on the president’s budget and policy proposals for Fiscal Year 2013. Since assuming his position in the president’s cabinet in January 2009, Secretary Duncan has proven to be an active and visible member of the administration. However, a look at some of the numbers defining his tenure in ... Read more »
On Wednesday, Education Secretary Arne Duncan will testify before the U.S. House Committee on Education and the Workforce on the president’s Fiscal Year 2013 budget request for the Department of Education. If the secretary’s recent appearance in front of the House Appropriations Committee is any indication, we can expect to hear a lot of rhetoric on the administration’s preferred education policie... Read more »
Dear Mr. Dodaro: On July 1, 2010, the Federal Family Education Loan (FFEL) program was eliminated and replaced by 100 percent direct lending. Since 1965, the FFEL program leveraged hundreds of billions of dollars in private sector capital to help Americans pay for college. However, with the elimination of FFEL, the government now originates and oversees every single new federal higher education l... Read more »
Two years ago today, President Obama signed his health care reform plan into law. His decision reflects the Democrats’ fatal error in believing that one day the public would support their health care scheme. In fact, not even the president is taking the time today to tout what the administration hails as one of his signature achievements. It hasn’t happened and, according to the Wall Street Journa... Read more »
Dear Mr. Secretary: Last Spring, the President signed into law the SOAR Act which reauthorized, for five years, the highly successful Opportunity Scholarship Program (OSP). The program, created in response to years of a crisis with respect to the quality of education in the nation's capital, provides low-income District families with scholarships to attend private scholastic institutions in the D... Read more »
