Press Releases

Congressman Rick W. Allen (R-Ga-12) held a telephone town hall on Monday to answer questions from residents of Georgia's 12th District. Congressman Allen gave an update on important issues facing our nation such as tax reform and our booming economy, healthcare, funding our military, veterans care, and Congress' efforts to combat the opioid crisis.

For those who were unable to participate in the call, here are some of the highlights:

Jimmy from Martinez asked what Congress is doing to help students with overwhelming student loan debt:

Congressman Allen: "We have crafted in the [ House ] Education and Workforce Committee a new higher education bill to reauthorize higher education and that includes all of the grants and student loans. It is called the PROSPER Act. What we’re doing in the PROSPER Act is providing information to those folks seeking a higher education and giving them the resources that they need to make those decisions.

One of the big problems we’ve got in the student loan process, and I know I’ve had this problem with my own children, is that they went off to college and didn’t know exactly what they might want to do in their occupation. The problem with college today is that it’s so expensive that you can’t afford to go through college and then say, well I don’t know if I want to do that and go do something else. What we’re trying to do in the PROSPER Act is identify exactly what students are interested in, provide them loans to get those degrees, and we’re already seeing a change in education out there...We’ve got 6.7 million jobs open out there today, and there is no time in history where the opportunity for young people has been greater. Everywhere I go in the district, people need workers. So what we have to do is we have to quickly get folks trained up and into the workforce.

I’m all for reducing the [college] rate and making education accessible to all of our folks. We’ve got to get the cost of education down. The two things that have increased dramatically in cost in the last ten years, one is education, the other is healthcare. The government is heavily invested in both and I think that’s the reason costs are going up. I hope that helps you."

David from Swainsboro asked about our nation's infrastructure, particularly in Georgia:

Congressman Allen: "We’ve got some real needs, specifically in Georgia. The President wants to do an infrastructure bill and Congress wants to do an infrastructure bill. A lot of this is dealing with rural broadband and really just getting broadband and cell service throughout the country. You cannot believe how big an economic impact that will make, no matter where you live. More people are actually working online now in the workforce. I mean it’s more and more every year. We’ve got to address our infrastructure needs as far as transportation is concerned.

I’ll tell you the problem with infrastructure right now is we don’t have the skilled people to do it...We’ve got 25 million people out there—work-capable people who are stuck in poverty and we want to get those folks skilled up and trained and back to work. That’s one of the things that the Farm Bill addressed and we’ve got other legislation on that.

We’ve got a lot of work to do over the next five years to get our trained work force. I will tell you this too, I was at the White House [last] Thursday with the President and we had 30 of the industry reps and large companies, like Home Depot, UPS, and Fed Ex—they were all there and they signed a pledge to grow a skilled work force by 4 million workers in the next five years.

That’s through apprenticeship programs and other programs to get folks back to work, get them skilled up and I’ll tell you, that was one exciting conference and one I was glad to be involved in.

Those are the kinds of things we’re doing and again, I know transportation is a big part of that."

Steve from Claxton asked about technical training in high school:

Congressman Allen: "Over the last twenty-years, particularly the last ten years, there’s been this move to push young people into college. We’ve got $1.5 trillion in student loan debts.

Those folks are encumbered with tremendous debt and those who finally graduate from college, they get out and there may be no jobs available...Whereas you can go to technical school and in five semesters, like I said, you could...have a tremendous career.

Again, we address this in the Career Technical Education Reauthorization. Please call your senators and ask them to take up and pass the career technical reauthorization and that will fix a lot of those problems."

After this Telephone Town Hall, the Senate-amended version of the Strengthening Career and Technical Education for the 21st Century Act passed in the House of Representatives and is now on its way to the President's desk.

If you would like to sign up for the next telephone town hall, please sign up here. If you would like to learn more about the work Congressman Allen is doing in Washington and for the 12th District, please sign up for his weekly e-newsletter here.

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