House Passes Emergency Legislation to Save Teacher Jobs
WASHINGTON, D.C. – The House of Representatives today approved legislation that will save or create 319,000 American jobs in local communities, including 161,000 teacher jobs, and also discourages American corporations from shipping jobs overseas. By a vote of 247 to 161, the House passed H.R. 1586, the Education Jobs and Medicaid Assistance Act. President Obama indicated he would sign the legislation into law later today.
“With this vote today, we’re taking decisive action to prevent our children from becoming victims of this economy by ensuring more teachers remain in the classroom. This legislation won’t save every job but it will certainly provide much-needed relief and a critical lifeline to schools,” said U.S. Rep. George Miller (D-CA), chairman of the House Education and Labor Committee. “It was the right decision to come back to Washington to take this important vote,” Miller added. “It’s not the first time this Congress has voted to support jobs, teachers and the future of this country. And we are not done working to rescue this economy. Sadly, it is also not the first time Republicans have voted against jobs and against assistance for families across the country.”
The legislation includes $10 billion to save teacher jobs and $16.1 billion in health assistance to the states. The funding will also keep police officers and firefighters on the job, at no cost to taxpayers.
According to estimates from the Department of Education, the $10 billion in education funding will save 161,000 teacher jobs. And the Economic Policy Institute estimates the Medicaid funds will save and create 158,000 jobs, including preventing the layoff of police officers and firefighters. More than half of these jobs will be in the private sector, including workers who contract for or supply services to state and local governments.
Under the bill, California will receive an estimated $1.8 billion in Medi-Cal assistance and $1.2 billion in emergency education funding. It is estimated that 16,500 California teacher jobs would be saved by this funding, including an estimated 249 education jobs in Miller’s 7th Congressional District, which includes portions of Solano and Contra Costa counties.
Miller said that he has indicated to the Department of Education that the education funds should be sent out to the states and distributed to local communities as quickly as possible.
The bill reduces the deficit by $1.4 billion over 10 years, according to the Congressional Budget Office. The bill includes costs of $26.1 billion and offsets of $27.5 billion – including $17.7 billion in spending cuts and $9.8 billion by closing tax loopholes that encourage corporations to ship American jobs overseas.
The legislation uses the same formula to distribute the education funds to states as was used in the State Fiscal Stabilization Fund under the Recovery Act . The formula allocates funds based on each state’s relative population of individuals ages 5 to 24 and of each state’s share of the total population. Governors will distribute funds to districts using the state’s primary funding formulae for K-12 education or each district’s share of Title I. Once the bill is enacted, Governors will be required to tell local school districts which formula they plan to use to allocate the funds to ensure districts can plan immediately to hire back staff.
Miller has been fighting for almost a year for additional emergency aid to keep teachers in the classroom. He initially proposed a $23 billion dollar emergency “Education Jobs Fund” in late 2009. Twice, the House passed funding to support teacher jobs, but Senate Republicans blocked the legislation from moving forward. Miller also authored the Local Jobs for America Act, introduced in March, which would help create and save public and private sector jobs and restore vital services in local communities.
More information about the work Miller has done to save jobs
More information about the bill
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