Katherine Clark: “I thank the gentleman for yielding. Mr. Chairman, I do not oppose this amendment. In fact, I support my colleague's…”

“I thank the gentleman for yielding. Mr. Chairman, I do not oppose this amendment. In fact, I support my colleague's effort to improve access to early childhood mental health promotion, intervention, and treatment. But I think it is important that we come back to why we are here tonight and why this $5 million for mental health programs is not included in this Labor-HHS bill under consideration. The reason is because this bill is being cut by $5 billion from FY17 levels. This is the end result that we get when the majority's efforts to slash nondefense spending come to fruition. We are forced to choose between lifesaving programs, such as mental health and substance abuse programs, and programs that invest in our future, like early childhood education or job training. We ought to be negotiating a bipartisan budget deal to lift the sequestration caps on both defense and nondefense programs. Then we could begin working on a bipartisan base that will allow us to adequately fund mental health and substance abuse prevention.”