Tom Cotton on Corporations

AdWatch: Worked as management consultant, not in insurance

This attack ad attempts to connect the dots: Rep. Tom Cotton made a fortune working for insurance companies, the story goes, and so he would happily do their bidding as Republicans dismantle Medicare. The ad even helpfully provides an image of connected dots.

The problem is that these dots are phony. The core of the ad is that Cotton worked for insurance companies. Cotton worked as a management consultant for McKinsey & Co., flitting from one industry to another; [the closest he came to insurance was] an assignment working for the Federal Housing Authority, to improve its service in providing insurance to lenders who finance apartment buildings.

As for Cotton's pay, he earned $85,000 from McKinsey in 2011. We will leave it to readers to decide if that means he was paid "handsomely."

Voted YES on workforce training by state block grants & industry partners.

Supporting Knowledge and Investing in Lifelong Skills Act or SKILLS Act:
• Reauthorizes appropriations workforce investment systems for job training and employment services.
• Requires a plan describe:
  1. strategies and services to more fully engage employers and meet their needs, as well as those to assist at-risk youth and out-of-school youth in acquiring education, skills, credentials, and employment experience;
  2. how the state board will convene industry or sector partnerships that lead to collaborative planning;
  3. how the state will use technology to facilitate access to services in remote areas;
  4. state actions to foster partnerships with non-profit organizations that provide employment-related services; and
  5. the methodology for determining one-stop partner program contributions for the cost of the infrastructure of one-stop centers.
• Repeals title VI (Employment Opportunities for Individuals with Disabilities)

National League of Cities op-ed, "H.R. 803 fails because it would:"
1. Undermine the local delivery system that has been the cornerstone of job training programs
2. Establish a program that is based on political boundaries (states) rather than on economic regions and local labor markets, or the naturally evolving areas in which workers find paying work
3. Eliminate a strong role for local elected officials but require that they continue to be fiscally liable for funds spent in their local areas
4. Change what was once a program targeted to those most in need--economically disadvantaged adults and youth and special population groups like veterans, migrant farm workers, and low income seniors--into a block grant to governors
5. Contribute to the emerging division between those American's who have the requisite skills to find employment and those who do not.