Job training programs cut in budget deal

[Better Believe It]

Job training programs cut in budget deal
By Peter Whoriskey
April 15, 2011

.... details of the budget compromise this week between the president and congressional leaders show federal funding for job training programs has taken a significant hit — more than $870 million in all. Included are cuts to occupational training grants at community colleges, green jobs classes and a program to help low-income older people acquire work skills.

The budget plan eliminated a $125 million grant program that allowed community colleges and other groups to run job training programs. Last year, for example, Salt Lake Community College had received $2.7 million from the program to create a center for training in new communications media; St. Johns River State College in Florida received $1.9 million for training for nursing and other health-care jobs; and Vincennes University in Indiana received $1 million to give students construction trade skills.

The largest single cut came from a program that helps low-income older people get training. Its budget was reduced by 45 percent, or $376 million.

“At a time of record unemployment and hardship among the elderly poor, cuts will deal a terrible blow to these older workers,” AARP Foundation President Jo Ann Jenkins said in an e-mail. “No other programs, public or private, exist to pick up the slack when cuts begin.”

Read the full article at:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/job-training-programs-cut-in-budget-deal/2011/04/15/AFclE3kD_story.html

[midnight]

1. Creating jobs must not be as important as the jobs G.E. is creating by paying no taxes....

[Better Believe It]

2. GE did create a terrific CEO job!

[Newest Reality]

3. It sends us all a message.

While we await a turnaround that is not likely at all to happen, we might want to listen carefully to the sound of contraction and collapse.

When so many people are overtly being written-off, waking-up to this pot of coffee is no easy thing to do. I wonder how many people are living in a false sense of comfort vs. those who are not of liquid wealth who can see that they are swirling around, near the rim, as the bowl flushes.

We will all be in this together, either now or later. Getting past the boundaries of individualism may be our biggest hurdle until survival itself trumps many of those non-essential indulgences.

[liberal N proud]

4. Jobs? there are not going to be any jobs to train for