John Boehner, Nancy Pelosi pat each other on the back for job training bill
What once may have seemed like routine work for the House of Representatives -- passing a bipartisan bill to improve job training programs -- was cause for celebration on Friday.
House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., shared a photo-op on Friday to commemorate this week's passage of the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act. The bill -- which consolidates some federal job training programs, provides more flexibility in the programs at the local level, and reforms the job training system for young people with disabilities -- has already passed in the Senate and now makes its way to President Obama's desk.
"This is a great opportunity for us to show we can get things done," Boehner said, in apparent acknowledgment of how rare bipartisan cooperation has become. The American people's priorities, he said, "are, frankly, our priorities."
Boehner said that the bill should help give the millions of unemployed Americans the skills needed to fill the approximately 4 million job openings in the U.S.
The bill, Pelosi said, is a "recognition that the American people are very talented" and that "the private sector is ready to work with the workforce to provide the training" they need.