Rosa DeLauro

I wish we could apply the methodology that you have just outlined to other departments in taking a look at what might be suspicious claims, et cetera. Really just, bravo.

To cut those back would be to regress, to backslide to an area of not being prepared again for a pandemic.

I am very much concerned, as I said, that we have some members of our House majority demanding massive funding cuts in the 2024 appropriations bills.

It is unconscionable that we could support such cuts to these critical agencies.

These cuts threaten so much of the progress that we have made in recent years.

Make no mistake, caps are just another name for more cuts. Caps are cuts.

These cuts would be deadly and would be felt by everyone, including children, families, seniors, veterans, and our rural communities.

In the 2023 Government funding law led by this committee, we increased funding for the CDC by $760,000,000.

When I think back to where we were 2 years ago, I know it is thanks to your agencies that we have made such progress.

I thank the chair for holding this hearing, this critical hearing, and I am pleased to welcome our witnesses.

I would just end with Horace Mann, the great equalizer is education.

It is not speculation. There appears to be a pattern of looking at serious cuts overall.

We already had in the House a vote where 75 percent of House Republicans voted for Representative Massie's amendment to H.R. 5 that funding for all K through 12 education should be terminated by December of this year.

That implies overall an 8 to 9 percent across-the-board cut if everyone is equal.

This is a pattern that is coming forward of all of these institutions to look at going back to 2022 and seriously impairing our ability in education and in every other realm of public service.

There is no seat on this committee for Heritage.

First of all, I would just say to my colleague this great interest in inflation and deficit only arises on sporadic occasions.

The mental health efforts that you have been making to deal with the aftermath, the before the pandemic, the after the pandemic, and moving forward with mental health would be severely curtailed if we make a move to go back to the 2022…

I am concerned that the university's shareholders are looking to offload their troubled asset onto our public higher education system.

I think the mindset that we have to have should include the importance of mental health and well-being.

It shouldn't be thought of as an afterthought. It shouldn't be when children have an outburst or a traumatic experience.

We provided an additional $500,000,000 to this program on top of the resources in the Labor-H bill.

I will not stop fighting these drastic proposals that would hurt the communities that most need our help.

It has become overwhelmingly evident that hospitals that serve a disproportionate share of uninsured patients and Medicaid patients needed much more support.

I am proud that while I served as chair of the Labor-HHS Appropriations Subcommittee we responded quickly and forcefully to the COVID-19 pandemic.