Democrats are committed to living within our means while investing in the future, cutting the deficit, and continuing to aggressively attack waste, fraud and abuse. The GOP spending bill (H.R. 1) that passed on February 19th fails to meet these goals, and cuts spending on the backs of middle class families. And even worse, the GOP bill will cost more than 800,000 private and public jobs according to an analysis by the nonpartisan Economic Policy Institute. 

We agree with the President that we must out-educate, out-innovate, and out-build the rest of the world.  By contrast, the GOP spending bill:

• Makes devastating cuts in education
• Threatens American innovation
• Diminishes investments in rebuilding America
  
• Imposes cutbacks in public safety
• Harms those hurting most – including seniors, veterans, and working families with children

Learn more about how H.R. 1 would impact education, innovation, rebuilding our infrastructure, public safety, seniors, veterans, and working families:

Education

• Pell Grants:  Slashes the maximum Pell Grant by $845 -- from the current maximum of $5,550 to $4,705.  This GOP bill will lower the amount of aid that 9.4 million college students are projected to receive.
• Head Start:  218,000 children will be immediately dropped from the Head Start program, due to the Republicans’ $1 billion cut.  55,000 teachers, teacher assistants and related staff would lose their jobs. 
• Title I:  Federal support for K-12 education would be severely cut.  Includes cuts of nearly $700 million in help in reading and math for disadvantaged children – meaning 2,400 schools serving 1 million disadvantaged children would lose funding.  About 9,000 teachers and aides would be laid off.  
• Special Education:  Reduces funding for Special Education by $558 million, resulting in more than 7,000 special education teachers and staff losing their jobs.
• Job Training:  Grants to states for job training would be slashed by $3.6 billion – hurting America’s ability to win the race for jobs and industry in the 21st century and cutting training for more than 200,000 Americans out of work through no fault of their own.

Innovation

• National Science Foundation:  5,500 fewer researchers, compared to FY 2010 funding (and 20,000 fewer researchers, compared to President’s FY 2011 request) would be supported at the National Science Foundation – undermining America’s efforts at breakthrough basic research in science and engineering.
• NIH:  $1.6 billion in cuts, compared to FY 2010 funding (and $2.5 billion in cuts, compared to President’s FY 2011 request) for the National Institutes of Health.  Such a severe cut would require NIH to reduce support for over 25,000 existing research grants and scale back promising clinical trials, representing a significant setback in research for such diseases as cancer, diabetes, and Alzheimer’s.
• Clean Energy Research:  $1.7 billion in cuts, compared to FY 2010 funding (and $2.3 billion in cuts, compared to President’s FY 2011 request) in clean energy research – including slashing Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy programs and the Department of Energy’s Office of Science, which would significantly delay much-needed research in clean energy technology and cost thousands of clean energy jobs.
• National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST):  Reduces funding for NIST, which promotes U.S. innovation and industrial competitiveness by advancing the building blocks of technological advancements, by $162 million below FY 2010.  This steep reduction could lead to construction halts and damage the Administration’s innovation initiatives.
• Wall Street Reform:  Jeopardizes the economic recovery by undercutting the implementation of the Wall Street Reform law, which is designed to  protect consumers and prevent future taxpayer-funded bailouts,  by cutting and hamstringing the funding of watchdog agencies charged with preventing future Bernie Madoff-type Ponzi schemes (CFTC & SEC) and of the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

Rebuilding America

• Overall Infrastructure:  Cuts key investments in rebuilding America, which will lead to the loss of more than 300,000 American jobs, primarily in the private sector. 
• High-Speed/Intercity Rail:  Zeroes out funding for High Speed Rail Corridors and Intercity Passenger Rail Services, including rescinding $2.5 billion in high-speed rail projects that have already been awarded.
• Clean Water Infrastructure:  750 fewer wastewater and drinking water projects that communities can finance with federal assistance, leading to the loss of nearly 40,000 American jobs.
• TIGER Surface Transportation Projects:  A loss of 25,000 new construction jobs and the cancellation of 76 projects in 40 states for TIGER surface transportation projects.
• Air Traffic Control:  $234 million in cuts in the efforts to improve our nation’s air traffic control system.

Public Safety

• Homeland Security Grants:  Reduces funding for FEMA State and Local Programs by $1.4 billion, which will significantly cut funding to support port and transit security and funding to hire first responders. 
• Border Security Technology:  Funding for border security technology is cut by about $250 million – slowing efforts to better secure the border with new and much-needed border surveillance technologies.
• Food Safety:  USDA food safety inspections would be cut by $88 million – making it impossible to conduct daily inspections of meat and poultry plants.  This would force many meat and poultry plants to shut down for more than a month in 2011, resulting in estimated economic losses of up to $11 billion.

Impact on Those Who Are Hurting Most

• Nutrition Assistance:  The WIC nutrition assistance program would be cut by more than $740 million, compared to the FY 2010 level – which would require thousands of parents, pregnant mothers, and children to be dropped from the program. 
• Low-Income Energy Assistance:  Low-Income Home Energy Assistance (LIHEAP) would be cut by almost $400 million – leaving out in the cold many of the seniors and families with children in need of help in paying high energy bills. 
• Title X:  Title X is eliminated, which provides life-saving health services, including HIV testing, cancer screening, blood-pressure testing, and contraceptive services, for more than 5 million low-income women, two-thirds of whom are uninsured.
• Housing for Homeless Veterans:  Eliminates a program of housing vouchers for homeless veterans.  In January 2009, more than 75,000 veterans were homeless and over the course of the year nearly twice that many (136,000) spent at least one night in a homeless shelter.