Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich often is a headliner at Washington conferences. His draw is not just his hefty “formerly” title but also his skill at making policy entertaining—no mean feat in a city full of sharp people who nevertheless can lose their audience in the weeds of legislative and regulatory detail.

Gingrich was at his big-picture best as the keynote speaker at the National Association of Workforce Boards Forum on Monday, February 25. He called training crucial to economic growth because it creates “engaged” and productive workers who can compete with India and China.

“If we cannot train the American workforce and we cannot have the most dynamic economy in the world, we will no longer be the leading country in the world,” Gingrich said.

He recommended that individualized training take place regularly over a worker’s lifetime. It should be largely carried out over the Internet rather than in classrooms and adapted to cultures and languages. It must be a flexible and agile system because there’s no way to predict what the U.S. workforce will need in a few years—say, 2015.

“We’ll be lucky to know that in 2014,” he said.

Gingrich’s message was well-received, even though he criticized community colleges— and the rest of academia— as being the wrong institution to provide leadership in changing the U.S. workforce training system because it is too sclerotic.

It was likely that many in the audience represent community colleges on local Workforce Investment Boards, the public-private entities that manage the approximately $3 billion federal training system.

Nonetheless, Gingrich received a standing ovation at the end of his presentation—in part because he offered to be a bridge from the group to Sen. John McCain, R-Arizona.

Even though McCain, the Republican front-runner for president, has addressed training issues on the campaign trail, he is viewed with some suspicion by workforce boards. Training funds have tended to take a hit when McCain launches his budget-cutting offensives.

But the current Democratic majorities in Congress aren’t exactly raising the training flag. Last year during the appropriations process, no House member put Workforce Investment Act funding in the top 10 of his or her priorities in letters to the appropriations committee, according to David Bradley, CEO of USA Works.

The Democratic Congress restored about $1 billion in cuts that the Bush administration proposed for training, but it acquiesced to a $250 million rescission in Workforce Investment Act programs.

It’s more of the same in the Bush budget this year, which calls for about a $1 billion cut in training programs. The president has said that he will not accept any discretionary domestic spending above the limits he has set.

Last year, even Republicans who pledge to support workforce funding increases stood with the president when he vetoed a bill that would put more money into the Department of Labor’s budget.

“They can’t have it both ways,” Bradley said.

With partisanship rising to even higher levels than normal in the midst of a presidential campaign, gridlock is likely to impede this year’s budget process. So, advocates are going to play defense.

The message they should send to Congress, Bradley said: “No cuts, period, on workforce.”
 
Broader reform of the Workforce Investment Act has languished. Congress has not reauthorized the law since 2003. Democratic leaders have indicated it will not happen this year either, according to Bradley.

Among the reasons: A Republican push for faith-based delivery of training programs, Democratic desires to wait for a Democratic presidential administration, and objections from organized labor. In addition, there’s little time available on the congressional calendar.

Meanwhile, employers in several parts of the country—including Wisconsin, Ohio, Arkansas, Washington state and Kentucky—are collaborating with government and educational institutions through an initiative called “career pathways” to develop training programs to produce workers they need in manufacturing, health care and other sectors.

“Washington [D.C.] needs to learn from the examples of states,” said Julian Alssid, executive director of the Workforce Strategy Center. “Most people in the country don’t realize there are resources that can help them in their search for new and better jobs.”

An emphasis by Gingrich’s former colleagues on Capitol Hill and by the presidential candidates could do a great deal to raise the urgency of the issue.