Rosa DeLauro

I think it is important to reiterate again that today the average earnings of a college-educated person is $43,000 while someone with just a high school diploma averages about $27,000.

I want to get to a bunch of questions about the number; why the rapid increase in Pell recipients?

This is about the 13 percent cut in the majority's budget in regard to CMS and the Medicare program management.

Early interventions produce broad-based benefits, reduce social and economic inequality.

Ben Bernanke--and I talked about him yesterday in the education hearing--says the most important fiscal issue is whether the public interest is served by the composition of the government's budget.

Research shows that the programs are investments. There is no more effective investment than the focus on high-quality early learning.

I am a very strong supporter, as you quoted my remarks, of Head Start.

I think we want to get the record that shows that, Madam Secretary, that we are going to get the $1,000,000,000 back, and that we are going to fund the money in the 2012 bill.

I am pleased that, unlike the budget put forward by the majority here in the House, this request invests in continued medical research at the National Institutes of Health.

I cannot stress the importance of Head Start enough.

The funding is not there for community health centers.

It is unquestionably the most effective early childhood development program ever developed.

As a Nation how we can go back on the commitment to literacy is absolutely, I believe, unacceptable and it is irresponsible.

I challenged all those Governors last weekend to say that is the wrong cut to make.

I worry desperately about those children who haven't been read to, who don't know the front of a book from the back of a book.

I would like to add that the big losers in moving to direct lending are the banks.

If you can't read, you can't do anything, you have little chance for success.

The economic recovery program was a response to the recession, to massive unemployment.

We live or die here by programs that are authorized or not.

I want to thank you and the President for committing to investments in education.

If we want to create jobs, grow the economy, and reduce the deficit in the long term, it does not make sense to roll back our critical investments in education.

I strongly welcome the emphasis you placed on Pell Grants, maintaining the maximum award at the current amount of $5,550.

An $845 reduction in the Pell Grant, as has been said, takes us back 38 years in terms of the cost of what education is today.

Even Start, as a result of the 2-week C.R., the Continuing Resolution, that we are currently living under, has been in effect killed.

The Special Olympics is an authorized program.