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Rachel Gragg, federal policy director for the National Skills Coalition, praised the Democratic legislation and said the GOP bill went about streamlining training programs in the wrong way by combining them all into a single block grant.
“It’s almost like consolidating for consolidation’s sake,” she said.
Gragg also voiced concern that because the $6 billion authorization in the Republican bill is treated as a ceiling, it would leave the program vulnerable to future cuts, perhaps as soon as when the Republicans unveil their budget for fiscal 2014.
The Democratic bill, by contrast, “at a minimum maintains current funding and in some cases increases funding,” Gragg said.
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