Sean Reyes: “today the House is taking up extremely important legislation, H.R. 1, a bill to reauthorize the Elementary and Secondary…”

“today the House is taking up extremely important legislation, H.R. 1, a bill to reauthorize the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA). Although the bipartisan support for this bill is encouraging, just two weeks ago the republicans passed a budget resolution that committed no new resources for education. In fact, the budget resolution provided less than the amount the President requested by $900 million for fiscal year 2002 and by $21.4 billion over ten years. Instead of providing new resources for education, the conference report set funding levels equal to the amount needed, according the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), just to keep up with inflation. by contrast, H.R. 1 as reported authorizes approximately $5.5 billion more for elementary and secondary education programs for fiscal year 2002 than the $18.5 billion appropriated in fiscal year 2001. This difference between the funding levels authorized in H.R. 1 and the funds committed to education in the budget conference report confirms my concern about the Republican budget. Although Republicans claim to support investments in priorities such as education, their budget did not commit the necessary resources. Furthermore, last week we voted on an unfair rule for H.R. 1 which prevented Democrats from offering key education priorities as amendments.”