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Q. What kind of job retraining would your programs offer for, say, an autoworker in Michigan who lost his job?
ALTMAN: Governor Clinton has proposed a quite comprehensive plan with six or eight elements to increase or improve the nation's educational training system. I don't know how we would precisely retrain your figurative worker from Michigan. But obviously, it is a function of various retraining alternatives. We have proposed a national apprenticeship system. We have proposed a 1.5% training requirement, in terms of business spending, on training.
DARMAN: We favor apprenticeship programs, but I don't see how that addresses the problem of a 45-year-old person who's unemployed. He or she is not, at that stage of life, going to be an apprentice.
One problem with the way things are today is that the programs the government has available don't cut in until the individual is already unemployed. Another problem with the current system is that there are literally more than 50 different government programs.
The way we propose to fix that is to create one-stop shopping, to consolidate all of these programs and make sure people understand that there is one place they can go where they can get either the training they need or they can get a voucher for it. It is a concrete, comprehensive, market- oriented approach.
ALTMAN: I think there is merit in the voucher approach. But if this is such a great idea, what took you so long to propose legislation?
DARMAN: Well, I'm glad to know you're endorsing it.
Let me say what is wrong with the Clinton plan. The main financial component is one that requires private firms to spend 1.5% of their payroll on training.
ALTMAN: Excuse me. Most small businesses have fewer than 50 employees, and they will not be mandated under this proposal.
DARMAN: O.K. Well, what happens to all those people? Where do they get their training?
ALTMAN: The genesis of this proposal is that most of our trading competitors spend a lot more than 1.5% of payroll on training. A lot of our corporations do that, but a lot of them don't. A lot of them spend just at the upper level of employees.
DARMAN: Can I get to a more basic element? We need to have a work force in America that is more quantitatively literate than it has been. What creates the bottom-up pressure for a more innovative, creative and efficient education system? We say parental and student choice. The power to create something that approximates a marketplace so that people can say, If I'm not getting a good enough service from this school, I'm going to take the equivalent of a voucher and I'm going to plunk my education money down on the school that I know can perform and give my kid what he or she needs.
ALTMAN: That's a very good speech, but the problem with those ideas is that you haven't implemented them.
DARMAN: We've proposed it. It hasn't been enacted because Democrats have opposed it in Congress because it would change the system.
ALTMAN: We favor choice. The difference is, obviously, public school choice vs. private school choice. In our view, the Bush plan would have bad consequences for the public school system. In addition, we don't think it's a good use of taxpayer money to help finance private education.