Dan Miller: “I rise today in opposition to the Head Start Amendments Act of 1994. As a member of both the Education and Labor…”

“I rise today in opposition to the Head Start Amendments Act of 1994. As a member of both the Education and Labor Committee and the Subcommittee on Human Resources, I do so with some regret, because I strongly support the concept of Head Start, a program that attempts to help low-income children in their formative learning years. In an age of falling test scores and rising illiteracy, we need to invest more in our children to help them prepare to succeed both in school and in life. We could do even better if we got the Federal Government out of the administration of Head Start, block granting the needed funds to the States. But the rest of this conference report is unacceptable. It undermines legitimate programs like Head Start by authorizing massive increases in funding for Community Service Block Grants and the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program--two programs filled with pork barrel and unnecessary spending. Instead of increasing their funding, we should be talking about eliminating CSBG and LIHEAP outright.”