May 26, 1977
Page 16816
Mr. MUSKIE. Mr. President, the bill presently under consideration, the Youth Employment and Training Act of 1977, is the culmination of much diligent work on the part of both Senators and the administration to alleviate the severe problems our country's youth are encountering as they attempt to become full participants and productive partners in our economic system.
My able colleagues have eloquently expressed today and over the last few months the gravity and pervasiveness of youth unemployment, and many have submitted their solutions to this problem in the form of legislation for our consideration.
It is not my purpose today to restate the well-documented severity of youth unemployment, nor is it necessary for me to discuss the particulars of the various approaches that have been combined into this single bill to deal with the problem. Rather, it is the process of combining these approaches in a tremendous spirit of cooperation by virtually all the major proponents of youth employment and training initiatives which I applaud.
As various bills to solve youth unemployment began moving through the legislative process and threatened to compete for the limited funds available in the congressional budget, it became clear that competition without cooperation would be detrimental to all.
The Budget Committee has fostered this cooperative spirit since Congress first made allowance for sufficient budget authority and outlays to accommodate major new initiatives in youth employment and training legislation in its assumptions underlying the third budget resolution for 1977. The importance of these initiatives was reaffirmed in the assumptions underlying the first budget resolution for 1978.
The 1978 budget resolution sets targets of $26.8 billion in budget authority and $27.2 billion in outlays for function 500, education, training, employment and social services. Carryover funds from fiscal 1977 and funds assumed in the first budget resolution for fiscal 1978 are sufficient to fund this program at the $1 billion level contemplated by the human resources committee during formulation of this bill. Funding at a higher level would, of course, place in jeopardy initiatives assumed for other education, training, employment, and social services programs.
I intend to support S. 1242, Mr. President, and I wish to single this bill out to my colleagues as an example of how we can maintain budgetary restraint, avoid program duplication and overlap, and at the same time move forward with a balanced attack on a major social problem afflicting the Nation's young people.