Thomas Daschle: “Today we resume debate on the five remaining fiscal 1996 appropriations bills. We are halfway through the fiscal year.…”

“Today we resume debate on the five remaining fiscal 1996 appropriations bills. We are halfway through the fiscal year. We have had two Government shutdowns. Our country's priorities have suffered greatly. Education, in particular, has suffered a series of extraordinarily difficult circumstances. Last week, the Appropriations Committee reported the Labor-HHS-Education bill that again cuts education by more than $3 billion. Many Republicans, once again, are attempting to pass a bill that continues these very devastating cuts in education--cuts that include $679 million from math and reading programs, denying services to 700,000 children; cuts in Head Start of $137 million, depriving 20,000 3- and 4-year-olds of early help that can lead to a lifetime of achievement; cuts of $266 million in the safe and drug-free school program, currently serving 23 million children. In the Republican bill, which passed in the Appropriations Committee, all funding for the Summer Youth Jobs Program is eliminated. More than 500,000 young people would otherwise benefit from that program. Spending levels in South Dakota and every other State are affected. In my State, schools face $5.3 million in reductions in the availability of education funding for fiscal 1996 and 1997. All this adds up to the fact that students will not receive the services they need. We simply cannot allow that to happen if there is any prospect of avoiding that kind of a disaster in education in the coming year.”