Providing for Consideration of H.R. 3010, Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act
PROVIDING FOR CONSIDERATION OF H.R. 3010, DEPARTMENTS OF LABOR, HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES, AND EDUCATION, AND RELATED AGENCIES APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 2006 -- (House of Representatives - June 23, 2005)
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Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to the rule, and I rise in opposition to the Labor-HHS Education appropriations bill.
My reason is simple: This bill shortchanges the American people in so many ways that it is difficult to keep track of them all. Just last month, when the House was considering H.R. 366, the Vocational and Technical Education for the Future Act, I raised the question of where the Appropriations Committee was going to find the $1.3 billion to fund these programs without making deep cuts in other critical programs.
I raised this question, because the Republican majority had just passed a budget resolution in lock step with the President's request to zero out vocational education programs.
So while I am pleased that the committee has restored $1.3 billion for vocational education, my worse fears have come to pass. This bill eliminates half a billion dollars' worth of other education programs. It eliminates half a billion dollars' worth of important health programs. It eliminates $56 million of Labor Department programs.
These critical programs include early learning opportunities for early childhood development, the Community Food and Nutrition program, comprehensive school reform, student alcohol abuse reduction, and dozens of others.
This bill practically eliminates funding for health professions training and professional development programs at a time when our Nation is facing a severe shortage of health care professionals. Primary care physician training programs in Massachusetts would be cut by $12 million.
These programs stand to be cut by over $2 million alone at the University of Massachusetts Health Care Center, the largest employer in my district. These cuts will further strain an already fragile health care system in my home State and around the country.
And I have not even begun to touch upon programs that have seen their funding sharply reduced or frozen for the second, third, or fourth year in a row. My colleague, the gentlewoman from New York (Ms. Slaughter), talked about the senseless cuts to PBS.
Essential programs such as community service block grants, the child block grant, after-school programs, the investment and professional training and development of our teachers have all been cut or level funded. In the end, thousands and thousands of families, children and elderly, the sick and the poor in our communities will lose the help and services that are critical to reducing the vulnerability of their daily lives.
Hospitals, health care centers, schools, and community centers will lose the ability to provide quality classes, programs and services.
Mr. Speaker, I was not sent to Washington to hurt the poor and the elderly. I was not sent here to shortchange our schools and health care providers or to undercut State and local efforts by starving them of needed resources.
As I have said on many occasions, and it is important to repeat today as we move on this legislation, the Republican majority is fast creating a government, that lacks compassion and has no conscience. My friends on the other side of the aisle fought ferociously for tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires. They had to have those tax cuts, and guess what, they have diverted billions and billions of dollars from programs that benefit our kids, our senior citizens, and the most vulnerable in our society.
I suppose that highlights the real difference between the two political parties. But, Mr. Speaker, what they are doing is wrong, it is so wrong and it is why I oppose this bill today, and I urge my colleagues to do the same.
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