Jeff Bingaman: “When you look at this $2.3 billion the Budget Committee report sets aside for this new, mandatory performance bonus…”

“When you look at this $2.3 billion the Budget Committee report sets aside for this new, mandatory performance bonus fund, that, of course, presumably, should come out of the total amount for education. I believe it does very explicitly. Therefore, when you subtract that, the resolution asserts a $2.2 billion increase for discretionary education programs. Given the size of the tax cut in relation to the non-Social Security surplus, this increase does not seem possible, as I mentioned before. But if we assume it is, it still falls short of covering the priorities specified in their own resolution. The resolution earmarks, out of the $2.2 billion that remains after you subtract the $2.3 billion down here--$1 billion for IDEA, it sets aside $1.6 billion for increases in other elementary and secondary education programs, and it sets aside $700 million for the increase to raise the maximum Pell grant by $200. If you add the $700 million, the $1.6 billion, the $1 billion, and the $2.3 billion, you get $5.6 billion. So the unfortunate reality is that there is no way to get it all done in the $4.5 billion that is permitted in the way of increases for education. Therefore, the $1.1 billion difference between the $5.6 billion and the $4.5 billion needs to be cut from other education programs in order to reach the specified increases.”