CSBG
CSBG
Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, no one is more committed to the Community Services Block Grant than I am. The Community Services Block Grant program helps to strengthen communities through services for poor individuals and families, assisting these low-income individuals to become self-sufficient.
CSBG provides critical services to poor families throughout the country. Services offered by CSBG entities can help support these important social services programs such as: Head Start, Low Income Home Energy Assistance Programs, LIHEAP, weatherization, literacy and job training programs, child health care, after-school programs, housing and homeownership services, financial literacy and asset development, and food pantries and meal programs. In FY 2002, the 1,100 community action network served more than 13 million individuals in more than 4 million families nationwide.
Over the past few months, I have received dozens of letters from Community Action Agencies from across the country, thanking me for my efforts on behalf on the Community Services Block Grant. I, along with Senator Chris Dodd, spearheaded a letter, signed by 56 of our colleagues, Republicans and Democrats alike, urging Senate conferees to the Labor/HHS/Education Appropriations bill to uphold the Senate funding level of $637 million. I understand that the conference report on the Labor/HHS/Education Appropriations bill includes $637 million for CSBG.
I hope that the conference report on the Labor/HHS/Education Appropriations bill will be enacted soon and that these vital resources will be directed to important services for low income individuals.
However, I cannot support the Harkin amendment because if that amendment passed, it would result in an interruption of funding not only for CSBG, but for all the social spending programs that low income individuals depend upon. That is not a responsible course of action.
We should not make support for CSBG a partisan issue--we should work together to enact the Labor/HHS/Education Appropriations Conference Report so that money can be appropriately directed to fund these important services.
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