Supporting Knowledge and Investing in LIfelong Skills Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. COURTNEY. Madam Speaker, I rise in support of this bipartisan consensus bill, and I want to congratulate Mr. Tierney for his steadfast work going back years, in terms of getting this to this point here today.

I also want to congratulate the members from across the aisle who, in agreeing to this bill, rejected the sequester level of spending, which was in the original bill that was passed earlier this session.

That sequester level of spending was going to handcuff job training efforts, so that we could not, in fact, achieve the goals that this bill will, in fact, get us to when it passes later today.

For example, the bill allows the employer support to go to 75 percent for on-the-job training and 20 percent support for incumbent worker training. Allowing that support to rise will give employers the flexibility and the opportunity to give new workers the skills that they need for advanced manufacturing and high-skilled jobs that they can't take that risk on for people with the cost that it would bear.

This bill gives them that support and that help, but it is because we rejected the unrealistic sequester levels, which the Ryan budget and which the original bill incorporate.

Now, let's do it for cancer research. Let's do it for law enforcement. Let's do it for homeland security. Let's get rid of sequester, and let's allow this economy and this country to get the resources it needs to grow and thrive for its middle class.

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