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E&W Blog

What You Should Know About Democrats’ America CONCEDES Act

WASHINGTON, D.C., February 2, 2022

Democrats continue to wage a campaign against American workers, businesses, and students. Their so-called “competitiveness” bill creates wasteful programs, reduces opportunities for workers and students, and opens college campuses to exploitative and coercive investments by the Chinese Communist Party. Clearly, Democrats care more about appeasing China than empowering hardworking American citizens.

Here is what you need to know about the education and workforce provisions in the Democrats’ America CONCEDES Act:

EDUCATION

K-12

  • Creates two duplicative programs that will fail to give America a competitive advantage over China.
  • Requires Department of Education STEM pathway grantees to meet diversity quotas to ensure the demographics of students participating in STEM pathways and advanced placement courses matches the student demographics of the state.

Higher Education

  • Fails to prevent the Chinese Communist Party and other foreign adversaries’ influence on college campuses. 
  • Weakens sanctions from the Department of Education on institutions that fail to disclose large donations and contracts with foreign actors, including the Chinese Communist Party.
  • Fails to take seriously institutions that conceal large donations and contracts with foreign entities.
  • Ignores the needs of our national security workforce pipeline by more than tripling funding for ineffective international education programs in the Higher Education Act.
  • Coercively mandates states adopt credit transfer policies at colleges and universities that will undermine states’ autonomy.

Workforce Development

  • Creates duplicative workforce development programs that cut out opportunities for employer-developed apprenticeships to expand and thrive.
  • Fails to reform the workforce system so that American workers can obtain the skills they need to remain competitive and keep America secure.
  • Closes pathways to work for students and job seekers:
    • Makes the existing 80-year-old apprenticeship system the only option for workers.
    • Denies workers and employers autonomy to create programs that are responsive to workforce needs.
    • Buries job creators under burdensome requirements, additional bureaucracy, and time-consuming paperwork.

WORKFORCE

  • Gives unions unfair advantages over small businesses and independent workers by adding Davis-Bacon provisions to previously bipartisan policies.
    • The Davis-Bacon Act and related laws require that contractors on federally funded construction projects pay so-called “prevailing wages,” inflating federal construction costs and favoring unions.
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