Frank Pallone: “education is one of the priorities that the President and Democrats in Congress have stressed should not be severely…”

“education is one of the priorities that the President and Democrats in Congress have stressed should not be severely impacted during these constant budget battles that take place on the floor of this House of Representatives. Yet, once again, we face a situation where the House-passed spending bill for the remainder of this fiscal year would provide the largest cut in education in the history of the Federal Government. Mr. Speaker, this is really the work primarily of Speaker Gingrich and the House Republican leadership, whose radical plan would essentially cut $3.3 billion from the education programs, a 13-percent reduction in funds that schools around the country depend on to educate students of all ages. The Senate, as was mentioned by one of my colleagues earlier, fortunately has voted to restore most, or about $2.5 billion, of this lost education funding. However, Mr. Speaker, the Senate bill will not prevail if Speaker Gingrich and his extremist views hold sway. Today, the House Republicans passed another stopgap funding bill. It is the 11th, I believe, since the beginning of this session. This measure would only keep the Government running for another week. Its purpose is to give House Republicans an opportunity to attack the reasonable education funding levels in the Senate bill. It is nothing more, in my opinion, than another attempt by House Republicans to hold the Federal Government hostage to their agenda.”