Rosa DeLauro

We must defend public education, not defund public education.

We need to continue on, but the strategy is ensuring States and districts focus like a laser on evidence-based responses to learning loss.

The Democrats worked with the President and with you, $130,000,000,000 to K through 12 schools in the American Rescue Plan, 20 percent to deal with learning loss.

The Department is committed to combating illegal child labor because we cannot build our economy on the backs of children.

I am proud of where we ended up with the 2024 appropriations bills, but there are still unmet needs for workers.

Last year, House Republicans proposed a destructive cut of $4.7 billion to the Department of Labor.

Unfortunately, many of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle want to roll back these essential protections, but we cannot go backwards.

I specifically commend your Department's work to fight wage theft when employers fail to compensate workers for the wages they have earned.

We need to take a very hard look and investigate the price gouging that is being done by corporations.

It is, therefore, our duty to invest in every American child so that they may have the opportunity to reach their potential, achieve their dreams, and become the leaders of the next generation.

Chronic absenteeism from school is a profound crisis for our kids.

This budget is about making responsible choices together to invest in that foundation for American opportunity and raise the bar for our Nation's future.

I am here to defend it unapologetically as the foundation of the American Dream.

Thank you so much, Chairman Aderholt, for holding this critically important hearing this morning on the Department of Education's budget.

I think we ought to examine the kinds of authority that HHS should have, and quite frankly, that should not be an unfunded mandate.

I think the Department of Education, we had mental health counselors in schools. That is first line, as well, to look at that and put resources there.

This subcommittee has made behavioral health, I might add, a major priority, including the doubling for SAMHSA over the last 8 years from $3,800,000,000 to roughly $7,600,000,000.

I am a long-time supporter of the National Child Traumatic Stress Initiative, that looks at mental health care for kids.

I have seen the positive impact of substance use in our--we have peer review counselors now, crisis response teams around the country, one in my own hometown of New Haven, Connecticut.

We know during the pandemic, public health infrastructure almost collapsed on us.

We need to not backslide on our public health investments.

We were trying to get women and minorities into the clinical trials.

Thank you for including, again, the Title X money, which I think is very important.

I was pleased that the budget includes investments in women's health, that is Title X, NIH Office of Research on Women's Health.

And early childhood, I was just in a daycare center in New Haven last Friday, and they take infants, 6 weeks.