U.S. House Committee on Education and the Workforce Chairman John Kline (R-MN) issued the following statement today after the Government Accountability Office (GAO) released two reports examining the U.S. Department of Labor’s proposed changes to the Federal Employees’ Compensation Act (FECA): The GAO reports offer important insight into the consequences of the Labor Department’s proposed FECA ref... Read more »
Each year, the federal government spends more than seven billion dollars on Head Start, a program designed to help low-income children prepare for success in school and in life. In an effort to ensure the program is working for families and taxpayers, congressional leaders in the House and Senate have attempted for months to obtain information on Head Start's effectiveness and implementation. How... Read more »
The House of Representatives today approved the Streamlining Claims Processing for Federal Contractor Employees Act (H.R. 6371), legislation that moves responsibility for wage claims adjustments for workers employed by federal contractors from the Government Accountability Office (GAO) to the Department of Labor. Sponsored by Representative Tim Walberg (R-MI), chairman of the Subcommittee on Workf... 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 »
U.S. House Education and the Workforce Committee Chairman John Kline (R-MN), Subcommittee on Higher Education and Workforce Training Chairwoman Virginia Foxx (R-NC), Representative Judy Biggert (R-IL), Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee Ranking Member Mike Enzi (R-WY), Senator Lamar Alexander (R-TN), Senator Tom Coburn (R-OK), and Senator John Cornyn (R-TX) today sent a letter... Read more »
Dear Mr. Dodaro: On March 27, 2012, we requested the Government Accountability Office examine the U.S. Department of Education’s oversight into the Direct Loan rehabilitation process for defaulted borrowers. Since that time, we have received numerous troubling complaints from borrowers whose financial information and payments were lost by the department, who were put into forbearance without bein... Read more »
The most recent jobs report reveals that unemployment is once again on the rise and millions of Americans are struggling to find work. President Obama’s failed policies have made it more difficult to find a job that offers a 40-hour work week. One painful example is the president’s government takeover of health care, a law that punishes employers with as few as 50 workers for raising wages and hir... Read more »
U.S. House Committee on Education and the Workforce Chairman John Kline (R-MN) issued the following statement after the Department of Labor released employment data for October: Results matter. And today’s employment report shows the American people have not been given the results President Obama promised. Instead of unemployment below 6 percent and a robust job market, Americans now face record d... Read more »
U.S. House Committee on Education and the Workforce Chairman John Kline (R-MN) issued the following statement after the Obama administration once again failed to publish a list of economically significant regulations under development as required by federal law: The Obama administration continues to play a game of regulatory hide-and-seek with the American people. Current law was designed to prote... Read more »
Reports continue to reveal new school lunch requirements are leaving students hungry, increasing food waste, and running up costs for schools nationwide. According to a school food services director from Shrewsbury, Massachusetts, "Participation is down, and the feedback we are getting is that [students are] not getting enough to eat. I like the regulations, but the one-size-fits-all doesn’t real... Read more »