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Today the President will announce that he has vetoed the
Labor/HHS/Education appropriations bill for Fiscal Year 2000. He will
cite Congress' failure to provide critical investments in education and
the across-the-board cuts made by the bill in such critical areas as
defense, veterans' programs, education, environmental protection, and
law enforcement.
The President will call on the Congress to work in a bipartisan way with
the Administration to enact a budget that meets the education,
environmental, law enforcement, and foreign policy priorities he has
called for throughout the year. He will also urge the Congress to enact
a number of other critical measures they have failed to complete,
including an increase in the minimum wage, the Jeffords-Kennedy bill,
common-sense gun legislation, and the Patients' Bill of Rights.
Congress' Labor/HHS/Education Bill Guts Critical Investments
Guts Investment in Accountability, Teacher Quality and Class Size
Reduction. The bill provides no funding for class size reduction and
fails to address teacher training issues. The bill turns these programs
into a block grant that could be spent on vouchers and other unspecified
activities. By failing to fund class size reduction this bill does not
guarantee that the more than 29,000 teachers hired last year can
continue teaching in smaller classes and eliminates funding for an
additional 8,000 teachers that would be hired under the President's
Budget for next year. The bill also fails to invest in proven teacher
professional development practices.
Guts Investment in Title I Grants Title I of the Elementary and
Secondary Education Act currently provides much-needed academic support
to nearly 12 million children in high-poverty communities. The bill
provides $189 million less than the President's budget for Title I. As
a result, 300,000 fewer children in high poverty communities would
receive additional educational services. Title I funding is a key
component of efforts to help disadvantaged students reach high
standards. The bill also fails to provide language needed to implement
the President's plan to set aside 2.5 percent of Title I funds to help
states and localities turn around or reconstitute failing schools using
Title I resources.
Underfunds GEAR UP GEAR UP is a nation-wide initiative to encourage
more young people to have high expectations, stay in school, study hard,
and take the right courses to go to college. The bill provides $180
million, $60 million below the President's Budget. Nearly 131,000 fewer
low-income students would receive services in FY 2000, compared to the
President's request. The President's Budget extends GEAR-UP services to
over 570,000 students in FY 2000.
Guts Investment in After School The bill provides only $300 million
of the President's $600 million request for After School programs,
resulting in nearly 400,000 fewer students being served than would be
served under the President's Budget. If the President's proposed
matching provision were included, it would serve 800,000 fewer.
After-school programs are one of the most effective ways to help
students reach high academic standards and end harmful practices such as
social promotion.
Bill Underfunds Investment in Educational Technology The bill
provides $60 million less than the President's request of $801 million
for a variety of innovative educational technology programs. Funds to
help all states and thousands of school districts buy hardware and
software, train teachers, and link up to the Internet were cut by $25
million. Funding to establish up to 300 Community Technology Centers
was slashed from $65 million to $10 million.
Threatens Enforcement of Labor Protections The bill level results
in an effective freeze for Department of Labor domestic workplace
enforcement programs, resulting in a $51 million reduction below the
President's request. For example, OSHA is cut $25 million below the
President's budget. As a result of this cut, some 2,200 fewer OSHA
compliance inspections would be performed.
Cuts the Social Service Block Grant (SSBG) The bill cuts SSBG by
$209 million below FY 1999, and by $680 million below the President's
request. SSBG serves some of the most vulnerable families in the
Nation, with child protection and child welfare services for millions of
children.
Eliminates the President's Family Caregiver Support Program The
bill does not include funds for the President's $125 million new
initiative to support those who care for the over 5 million elderly
Americans who have long term care needs.
Compromises Quality Healthcare Inadequate funding for public health
would compromise our efforts to vaccinate children, detect infectious
diseases, prevent the spread of AIDS, and respond to bioterrorism. The
bill fails to fund our efforts to bring more healthcare to the growing
ranks of the uninsured. It fails to respond to the aging of America by
not funding the family caregiver program and inadequately funding our
nursing home quality initiative. It freezes critical programs that
provide mental health, substance abuse, and family planning services to
vulnerable Americans. Finally, it contains unacceptable health riders,
including the delay of a critical regulation that would improve the
distribution of organs. The bill cuts public health priorities,
including preventive health, mental health and substance abuse, health
care access for the poor, and efforts to reduce racial health
disparities and the spread of AIDS worldwide. The bill would postpone
payments to research universities, public health clinics and other
grantees rendering it impossible to administer certain critical programs
of the NIH and the CDC. The bill fails to adequately fund the training
of children's health specialists.
Legislation Contains Harmful Across-the-Board Cuts in Critical Priority
Areas
The Labor/HHS/Education appropriations bill vetoed by the President
today contained an across-the-board spending cut which would have
resulted in damaging, indiscriminate cuts in priority areas, including
defense, veterans' programs, education, law enforcement, and the
environment. For example, it would have:
Forced the loss of as many as 48,000 military personnel
Reduced veterans' medical care by $184 million
Resulted in over 1.3 million fewer meals being delivered to elderly
persons in poor health in the Meals on Wheels program
Deprived 71,000 women, infants, and children of food and nutrition
assistance under the Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) program
Deprived nearly 3,000 children of receiving the full complement of
childhood immunizations; and
Required the FBI, INS, and DEA to cut the number of agents by a
total of more than 300.