Joe Cunningham: “I respect the gentleman from Michigan [Mr. Kildee]. We are on the same committee. I would say, of the 256 educational…”

“I respect the gentleman from Michigan [Mr. Kildee]. We are on the same committee. I would say, of the 256 educational programs we have, we cannot fund all the programs that really work adequately. Where do we get this free money? We take it from the people that we supposedly send it back to, but we only give it back to them at 23 cents on the dollar after we feed the Federal bureaucracy, and when we do that it is inefficient. Mr. Speaker, 93 percent of education is funded at the State and local level. We only funded 7 percent of it, but yet take a look. That 7 percent has over 50 percent of the rules and regulations that a State has to follow and over 75 percent of the paperwork. It is not efficient. So what we are doing is reducing it slowly. I agree we can just chop it off. Because of the economy, we cannot put it all back at the State. You cannot fund a school bond or election for education. But we have to reduce the waste and the spending. What did we cut? Yes, ask the gentleman from Minnesota [Mr. Sabo] on the Committee on the Budget. The President's Direct Lending Program capped at 10 percent cost a billion dollars more just in administrative fees. So what did we cut? We cut the precious bureaucracy and cut that out. We took the savings and increased student loans by 50 percent, increased Pell grants the highest they have been, and increased and level-funded the IDEA Program that my colleagues are talking about in special education. It is level-funded.…”