FACT SHEET | February 18, 2011

House Republicans' CR Slashes Investments in Jobs, Security and Education

Slashes Funding for Social Security Administration, Meaning Delays for Seniors and Disabled Americans Awaiting Benefits. The House bill cut funding for the Social Security Administration, meaning half a million Americans who are legally entitled to benefits and would otherwise have received them will instead be waiting for them.

Slashes Title I Education Funding, Putting 1 Million Students and 10,000 Jobs at Risk. The House plan cuts an additional $5 billion from the Department of Education, including slashing Title I education funding by nearly $700 million, meaning 2,400 schools serving 1 million disadvantaged students could lose funding, and approximately 10,000 teachers, aides and staff could lose their jobs.

Slashes Maximum Pell Grant Award By $845 Per Student. The House plan will cut the maximum Pell Grant award by $845 from $4,860 to $4,015, a 17 percent cut.

Slashes Head Start By 20%, Eliminating the Program for 218,000 Children and Forcing 55,000 Layoffs. The House bill funds Head Start at $6.1 billion, a cut of nearly $1.1 billion from the FY 2010 enacted level.  At the House level, HHS would have to cut approximately 218,000 low-income children and their families, a cut of over 20 percent.  This would involve laying off an estimated 55,000 teachers and related staff.

Eliminates Race to the Top & AmeriCorps. The House plan provides no funding to key K-12 priorities, including Race to the Top, Investing in Innovation, the Early Learning Challenge Fund.  In addition, the House plan eliminates AmeriCorps.

Slashes Food Safety Inspection Funding By $100 Million, Stopping Inspections and Costing the Economy and Businesses $11 Billion. The House plan reduces funding for the Food Safety and Inspection Service by $100 million. This would force many meat and poultry plants to shut down for more than a month during inspector furloughs, resulting in economic losses of approximately $11 billion and potentially leading to a spike in consumer prices.

Slashes Support for the WIC Program, Covering Fewer Women and Children Struggling to Get Back on Their Feet. The House plan reduces funding for the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children (WIC) by 10%, or nearly $750 million. At this rate, the program would need to dip into contingency funds or turn families away to cover the 9.3 million participants in 2011.

Slashes EPA Funding By Nearly 30% From Current Levels. The House plan cuts funding for the Environmental Protection Agency by 29% from the FY10 enacted level.

Slashes Funding for Renewable Energy By $787 Million. The House bill provides $787 million below the current level for Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy. Furthermore, the bill appears to provide no new funds for the Weatherization Assistance Program (WAP), which falls within this account. The bill would significantly delay needed investments in Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy R&D, demonstration and deployment programs critical to the transition to a Clean Energy Economy.  

Slashes Funding for the SEC & CFTC, Hindering Wall Street Enforcement and Consumer Protections. The House bill provides $188 million less for the Securities and Exchange Commission than the Obama Administration requested for FY11 and $149 million less for the Commodity Futures Trading Commission than the FY11 request, severely impairing SEC’s ability to implement the Dodd-Frank Act.

Slashes Funding for the National Institute of Standards and Technology, Rolling Back Critical Investments in Innovation.  The House bill reduces funding for NIST by $223 million below the Obama Administration’s FY11 request and $162 million below FY 2010.  This steep reduction could lead to construction halts and damage the Administration’s innovation initiatives.

Slashes Investment in Science Research, Hurting More Than 5,000 Researchers, Teachers and Students. The House bill slashes funding for the National Science Foundation by more than $300 million below current levels. The likely impacts of these cuts are 1,800 fewer research and education grants supporting over 5,000 researchers, teachers, and students, and significant cost and schedule growth for one or more of the major facility construction projects.

Slashes Funding for State and Local FEMA Programs, Impacting First Responders and Homeland Security. The House bill reduces funding for FEMA State and Local Programs by $1.4 billion.   This level significantly reduces funding to hire firefighters and other first responders and cuts funding to support port and transit security.

Slashes Funding for Border Technology Initiatives. The House bill reduces funding for the Department of Homeland Security’s border technology initiative by $243 million (including rescissions of prior year amounts).  This will result in a slow-down in the deployment of new and much needed border surveillance technologies.

Slashes Investment in Job Training When Workers Need it Most. The House bill completely zeroes out all new funding for WIA’s (title I) Adult, Dislocated Workers and Youth formula grant programs in Program Year 2011. If these cuts are enacted, more than 8.5 million job seekers and workers will lose services, including 130,000 veterans. In addition, the 3,000 local one-stop career centers across the country would be forced to close their doors.

Slashes Economic Development Administration Grants. The House bill cuts funding for Economic Development Administration grant programs by $80 million below the FY10 level, hindering EDA’s ability to promote competitiveness and prepare American regions for growth and success in the worldwide economy.

Slashes More Than $1 Billion from NIH. The House bill slashes $1.3 billion from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), which would force NIH to reduce support for more than 25,000 existing research grants and scale back clinical trials and research projects.

Slashes Investment in FAA NextGen, Leading to More Flight Delays and Hurting the Economy. The House bill provides $340 million less funding for the FAA’s NextGen program than the Obama Administration requested for FY11.  This funding level will significantly slow efforts to modernize FAA’s air traffic control system, including initiatives to develop satellite-based surveillance of air traffic, data communications capabilities, and efforts to improve aviation weather observations and forecasting.  This level will likely jeopardize FAA’s 2018 goals of reducing total flight delays by 21 percent and saving 1.4 billion gallons of fuel.

Zeroes Out Funding for High Speed Rail. The House bill zeroes out funding for High Speed Rail Corridors and Intercity Passenger Rail Service.

DPC