[Congressional Record Volume 155, Number 15 (Monday, January 26, 2009)]
[House]
[Pages H507-H508]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                      FOCUS ON EDUCATION SPENDING

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Connecticut (Mr. Courtney) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. COURTNEY. Mr. Speaker, tonight, as we sit here in this Chamber, 
all across America there are school superintendents, there are boards 
of education, there are boards of finance that are grappling with the 
greatest economic downturn since the Great Depression. And as we know 
from press reports all over the country, hundreds of thousands of 
school teachers have been given layoff notices. Forty-four States are 
now in deficit; $95 billion for 2009 fiscal year, $145 billion for the 
2010 fiscal year, as all these local officials, who have the 
responsibility of making sure that we have school programs that our 
children can have an opportunity to thrive and grow, are bracing 
themselves for Governors who inevitably are going to be reducing State 
support for education.
  It is in that context, Mr. Speaker, that as we proceed as a Congress 
to take up the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act on this 
Wednesday, that I think it's important to focus for a minute on the 
education spending which is included in this legislation.
  Under this measure, under this recovery act that President Obama and 
the congressional leadership have voted on last week, over $145 billion 
will flow out directly to school districts across this country. For 
example, there will be $13 billion to pay for Title I, a Federally-
mandated program which has been underfunded as part of the disgraceful 
unwillingness of the Federal Government to pay for the No Child Left 
Behind Act over the last 6 years. And $13 billion of additional funds 
will go out to pay for special education. Again, a disgraceful 
nonfunding by the Federal Government since 1975 when Gerald Ford signed 
the Special Education Act into law, mandating that all these local 
officials, again, who are trapped tonight, have to come up with the 
resources to pay for the special education needs of children all across 
the country.
  And $14 billion to pay for school construction. Again, directly to 
local communities so that they will have the funds to modernize and 
retrofit schools all across the country and immediately putting to work 
the construction trades, which is the hardest hit sector in the 
American economy.
  A $79 billion economic stabilization fund, which will flow directly 
into States through your education cost sharing formulas all across 
America to make up for the inevitable shortfall which Governors and 
State legislators are going to be forced to cut back on as they deal 
with, again, this historic economic downturn.
  President Obama understands that we must act with this American 
Recovery and Reinvestment Act with funding for education; number one, 
to make sure that hundreds of thousands of teachers are not going to be 
laid off, along with staff, who, again, we entrust with making sure are 
children are going to be educated every single day across this country.
  He also understands long term that the failure to step in and avoid 
larger class sizes, which will result in teacher layoffs, is going to 
ensure that our economy will grow not just in the short term, not just 
as we get through this economic crisis, but also to make sure that long 
term that America's competitiveness will be maintained.
  We know what is happening across the world today. That there are 
countries which are beating us in science, in engineering, in math. And 
if we allow as a Congress to step back and leave local communities on 
their own, with declining property tax revenues and declining State 
support for public education across this country, we will damage not 
only this country in the short term, but we will damage it in terms of 
our long-term ability to compete and thrive and grow as a Nation.
  This past Saturday, I sat down with school superintendents all across 
the Second Congressional District of eastern Connecticut to talk about 
the dilemma with which these school superintendents and boards of 
education find themselves in. Again, all of them are in the process of 
coming up with contingency plans to lay off staff and teachers across 
their district.

[[Page H508]]

  When I walked through with them the provisions of President Obama's 
recovery act in terms of the funds that they will get this year if we 
get this to the President's desk by President's Day, signed into law, 
the funds will flow by July 1 for this fiscal year, there was 
skepticism, and I don't blame them. The Federal Government has not 
funded Special Ed, has not funded No Child Left Behind.
  But when I explain to them that this measure has passed the 
Appropriations Committee, the Ways and Means Committee, the Energy and 
Commerce Committee as of last week, and we are voting on it this coming 
Wednesday, after the stunned silence, the room burst into applause 
because these folks are feeling the pressure of this economic downturn 
just like people in the private sector are.

                              {time}  1930

  But what we need to do as a Nation is, again, to make sure that in 
terms of trying to deal with this short-term crisis that we are in, 
that we are not going to do long-term damage to the young people of 
this country who had no responsibility for the fiscal and economic 
idiocy of the last 8 years. And that is why it is so important, as a 
Congress, we must step forward and support the American Recovery and 
Reinvestment Act and make sure that America's public education will 
endure.

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