The following three major issues should be addressed during the Comprehensive Employment and Training Act (CETA) reauthorization debate: program objectives, program effectiveness, and CETA's reliability as a delivery system. Suggested as a tool to reduce unemployment, reduce inflation, reduce welfare dependency, and provide fiscal relief to state and local governments, CETA faces the danger of becoming a program that will, in an attempt to address conflicting objectives, fail to address any one objective well. Policymakers should also consider the fact that while on-the-job training and classroom training generate the highest post-program earnings gains, there is also evidence that carefully tailoring employment and training programs to the individual needs of participants is preferrable to a priori attempts to legislatively prescribe treatment. The key delivery system issue for the 1982 CETA reauthorization debate is to force a clear choice between centralization and decentralization. Analysis of past CETA performance indicates that the program's primary objective should be to reduce structural unemployment. Programs should emphasize training that is closely aligned with employer skill needs, and available resources should be targeted at the most disadvantaged. In addition, CETA should be decentralized and its operations should be more closely coordinated with other employment-related federal programs. (MN)