Labor Secretary Alexander Acosta said Monday that the budget cuts that his department is facing won’t hamper the Trump administration’s effort to expand workforce training and apprenticeship programs. Acosta did not say where the funding for the expansion would come from, however, instead repeating that administration was focused on reforming existing federal programs.
“We tend in Washington to simply say, ‘How much more money can we spend on something?’ rather than, ‘Let’s think outside the box and try to solve a problem.’ I think we owe it to the American taxpayer who is ultimately footing this bill to focus less on how much we spend and more on whether the problem is being solved,” Acosta said during the White House press briefing Monday. He said the administration’s full plan would be announced Wednesday during a White House forum for its “Workforce Development Week” push.
President Trump’s proposed budget would cut the department’s funding to $9.7 billion, a 20 percent reduction from the current fiscal year. The White House says, however, that the training programs can be overhauled and made more effective by restructuring, consolidating or eliminating those that have not proven to be effective.
The administration estimates that 31 training programs are spread across 14 agencies, costing the the federal government almost $8 billion annually. On Saturday the White House announced that Acosta, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross and Education Secretary Betsy DeVos will lead to a team examine the programs and make restructuring recommendations.
Acosta also indicated that the administration will be leaning on private enterprise to support the training programs, though they would not be traditional “public-private” partnerships. “The point here is to foster private-private partnerships between industry and educational institutions, so that when students go to a community college or when students are looking at apprenticeship programs in the building trades or four-year institutions, when they leave they have the skills necessary to enter the workforce.”
