Miller: With GOP's Spending Bill, Americans Racing to the Unemployment Line. Facts about H.R. 1
WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Rep. George Miller, the senior Democrat on the Education and the Workforce Committee, today issued the following statement after the U.S. House of Representatives passed H.R. 1, the Continuing Resolution to fund the federal government through the remainder of the fiscal year.
“The Obama administration has encouraged Americans to race to the top; Now we have Republicans telling Americans to race to the unemployment line. With cuts to Head Start, our most vulnerable students and to job training, the Republicans are showing their true colors. It’s nothing new to demand less regulation and less wasteful spending but that’s not what the Republicans are doing with this bill. Instead, they’re throwing a sucker punch to Americas’ working families trying hard to fight back in this economy.
“Calling these ‘tough’ choices is just rhetoric – it’s not tough to cut money from Head Start, it’s not tough to take away money from poor and minority students. What’s tough is taking on the industries that have well funded lobbyists who can fight back. Poor and working families don’t have the means to fight back, but that’s where Republicans are making their not-so-tough cuts.
“It is simply irresponsible to leave working Americans without the
critical services they need but clearly the Republicans are more
concerned with ensuring the subsidies to hedge fund managers and
royalties to oil companies are protected.”
Cuts to programs within the committee’s jurisdiction:
EDUCATION
The massive cut to the Head Start program would remove 218,000 low income children and families and close more than 16,000 Head Start and Early Head Start classrooms across the country. It would leave 55,000 teachers, teacher assistants and related staff without jobs. For state-by-state cuts, click here
The cut to Title I of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act would mean 2,400 schools that serve nearly one million disadvantaged students would lose funding for teachers, tutors and afterschool programs. Nearly 10,000 teachers and aides could lose their jobs.
On top of these cuts, the Republican spending bill passed cut $336.55 million from funding to help improve high-poverty schools and $500 million to support teachers.
The Pell Grant scholarship maximum award would be reduced by $845 from $5,550 to $4,705. Many of the 9.4 million students who are projected to receive a Pell Grant in the 2011-2012 school year would see a lower grant award, requiring them to take out more loans to afford their college tuition and fees.
COMMUNITY SUPPORT
80,000 AmeriCorps members working
in food banks, community centers and organizations like Big Brothers
Big Sisters, Goodwill Industries, Habitat for Humanity, Teach for
America, and the United Way will no longer be able to provide resources
and support, leaving these organizations short staffed and under
managed.
1,000 community based non-profits would lose more than $312 million in volunteer labor secured through the work of the VISTA program and its 8,000 VISTA consultants.
The harmful cut to juvenile justice efforts would deny at-risk youth access to crime prevention and treatment programs, increasing juvenile crime and making communities less safe.
JOB TRAINING
Cutting job training by more than $3
billion would phase out state and local programs beginning between
April and July of this year, closing 3,000 One Stop career centers. This cut would also eliminate summer youth employment programs , denying access to job training and education to up to 7,000 disadvantaged students who would otherwise have benefited. Getting rid of the Green Jobs program would impact more than 6,000 workers.
The cuts to Job Corps would mean as many as 10,000 fewer people would have access to jobs and training opportunities.
Eliminating the job training opportunities provided through the Workforce Investment Act (WIA) would cut training for more than 200,000 unemployed who need new skills to compete in the workplace. With the additional investments made by the Democratic Congress in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, more than half a million Americans received training services provided through WIA programs.
WORKER SAFETY
Rolling back funding levels to 2004
levels for the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA)
would mean reducing staff by more than 415 people, including 200
inspectors and 17 whistleblower investigators. As a result there would
be approximately 8,000 fewer workplace hazard inspections and 740 fewer whistleblower discrimination investigations.
No more data would be collected on workplace health and safety trends. OSHA’s website would be eliminated.
Safety for workers in mine would be less secure by reducing the Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) budget to the levels from the 2010 fiscal year. Without additional funds, MSHA would have to lay off staff recently hired to work on backlog reduction in July 2011, and pull back on efforts to improve operations in West Virginia and purchase mine emergency response equipment.Cuts to programs within the committee?s jurisdiction:
EDUCATION
The massive cut to the Head Start program would remove 218,000 low income children and families and close more than 16,000 Head Start and Early Head Start classrooms across the country. It would leave 55,000 teachers, teacher assistants and related staff without jobs.
The cut to Title I of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act would mean 2,400 schools that serve nearly one million disadvantaged students would lose funding for teachers, tutors and afterschool programs. Nearly 10,000 teachers and aides could lose their jobs.
On top of these cuts, the Republican spending bill passed cut $336.55 million from funding to help improve high-poverty schools and $500 million to support teachers.
The Pell Grant scholarship maximum award would be reduced by $845 from $5,550 to $4,705. Many of the 9.4 million students who are projected to receive a Pell Grant in the 2011-2012 school year would see a lower grant award, requiring them to take out more loans to afford their college tuition and fees.
COMMUNITY SUPPORT
80,000 AmeriCorps members working in food banks, community centers and organizations like Big Brothers Big Sisters, Goodwill Industries, Habitat for Humanity, Teach for America, and the United Way will no longer be able to provide resources and support, leaving these organizations short staffed and under managed.
1,000 community based non-profits would lose more than $312 million in volunteer labor secured through the work of the VISTA program and its 8,000 VISTA consultants.
The harmful cut to juvenile justice efforts would deny at-risk youth access to crime prevention and treatment programs, increasing juvenile crime and making communities less safe.
JOB TRAINING
Cutting job training by more than $3 billion would phase out state and local programs beginning between April and July of this year, closing 3,000 One Stop career centers. This cut would also eliminate summer youth employment programs , denying access to job training and education to up to 7,000 disadvantaged students who would otherwise have benefited. Getting rid of the Green Jobs program would impact more than 6,000 workers.
The cuts to Job Corps would mean as many as 10,000 fewer people would have access to jobs and training opportunities.
Eliminating the job training opportunities provided through the Workforce Investment Act (WIA) would cut training for more than 200,000 unemployed who need new skills to compete in the workplace. With the additional investments made by the Democratic Congress in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, more than half a million Americans received training services provided through WIA programs.
WORKER SAFETY
Rolling back funding levels to 2004 levels for the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) would mean reducing staff by more than 415 people, including 200 inspectors and 17 whistleblower investigators. As a result there would be approximately 8,000 fewer workplace hazard inspections and 740 fewer whistleblower discrimination investigations.
No more data would be collected on workplace health and safety trends. OSHA?s website would be eliminated.
Safety for workers in mine would be less secure by reducing the Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) budget to the levels from the 2010 fiscal year. Without additional funds, MSHA would have to lay off staff recently hired to work on backlog reduction in July 2011, and pull back on efforts to improve operations in West Virginia and purchase mine emergency response equipment.
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