The Congressional Record is a unique source of public documentation. It started in 1873, documenting nearly all the major and minor policies being discussed and debated.
“CUTS TO THE BUDGET” mentioning the U.S. Dept of Labor was published in the House of Representatives section on pages H2299-H2300 on April 5, 2011.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
CUTS TO THE BUDGET
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. DeFazio) for 5 minutes.
Mr. DeFAZIO. A lot of talk around here about millions, billions, and trillions, but let's just try to put a face on some of the cuts the Republicans put in H.R. 1.
I think one of the meanest of their cuts and the stupidest of their cuts is to eliminate a program called YouthBuild. Now, I'm sure most of them don't know what it is. They have never met with the kids who come back here every year.
This is a program that started in 1992 under George H.W. Bush. It's a program that takes kids who have generally dropped out of high school, had problems with drugs, alcohol, other things, but at some point decide they want to get straight and they want to do something better with their lives.
So this program takes kids between 16 and 24, helps them get their GED, gets them some counseling, gets them involved in peer groups. They learn leadership skills, teaches them how to build houses and the houses they build are for low-income Americans.
In the long term we have found incredible results with this program. Last year--and these are almost 100 percent high school dropouts with problems--78 percent of the kids completed the program. That's pretty extraordinary. Now, after, when they leave the program, the longevity of the effect of this program, 7 years after completing the program, 75 percent of the YouthBuild kids, kids who had problems with drugs, alcohol, homelessness, dropped out of high school, everything else, are either in college or employed in jobs earning more than $10 an hour.
That's a pretty darn good investment. And what does this cost, and why would the Republicans zero it out? Well, it cost $102 million last year for 20,000 students.
Now, we could, I guess, instead leave them in the street without their high school degree, hopeless, maybe they would get back on drugs, maybe they will get in trouble, maybe we will them in jail, and then we will spend $30,000 a year to support them in prison. Twenty thousand bucks for 1 year to get these kids straight and have them become productive members of our society zeroed out by Republicans.
Now, it is a lot of money. That's almost 1 hour of spending for the Pentagon across the river, almost 1 hour. And there's no waste at the Pentagon, though. We are not allowed to look at the Pentagon for waste. It's almost 2 days--that's a lot--of agriculture subsidies, paying people not to grow things.
So 2 days of paying people not to grow things or a year's funding for a program that takes kids who have been in trouble but want to do better, want to learn some skills, want to be productive members of society and helps them get a leg up. But, no, in the Republican world, that's wasteful spending. They have zeroed out this program.
I met with eight of these kids last week. I meet with them every year when they come back--I urge my Republican colleagues, for once. I asked if they had seen their Republican member of my delegation. They said no. They met with a staff person, maybe an intern. Republicans can't seem to be bothered.
But they should listen to these kids, there's a lot of wisdom there and, I think, future leaders there. They have gotten their lives straight and they have gone through some hard times, and we gave them a little help, yes, 1 year. They get $500 a month while they are in the program, while they are building houses for low-income people, learning skills. And as taxpayers in the future, they will pay that back pretty darn quickly.
Now I wonder why they eliminated this program. First of all, I am sure they don't know what it is. They have never met with the kids, they don't care. These aren't people who go to the country club after all. But, secondly, probably because it's housed in the Department of Labor, and we hate anything on the Republican side of the aisle that has the word ``labor'' in it.
God forbid that America should do things for working people in this country or working people should be allowed the right to organize and have a better life. Well, this is a program that should be continued. It should, in fact, be enhanced. They had 19,000 kids who couldn't get in the program last year, on the waiting list, 19,000.
We should double the size of this program, maybe triple it. That would be a huge amount of money. That would be 3 hours of spending at the Pentagon, or almost a week of subsidies, paying corporations not to grow things on surplus lands.
Boy, I guess we can't afford that, can we? But we can't cut the subsidies, and we can't look for waste at the Pentagon, but we can stick it to these kids.
Good work, Republicans.
____________________
