Ranking Member DeLauro Statement at the Subcommittee Markup of the 2025 Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies Funding Bill

Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro (D-CT-03), Ranking Member of the House Appropriations Committee and the Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies Subcommittee, delivered the following remarks at the Subcommittee's markup of the fiscal year 2025 Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies funding bill:

Thank you, Chairman Aderholt, and my thanks to the subcommittee staff for your work on this bill, especially Stephen Steigleder, Philip Tizzani, Laurie Mignone, and Jackie Kilroy on the minority side, and Kathryn Salmon, James Redstone, Laura Stagno, Kirk Boyle, Emily Goff, and Laura Hatten Rell on the majority staff.

Last year, the Republican majority put forth a Labor-HHS-Education bill that would have taken thousands of teachers out of classrooms; eliminated job opportunities for young adults, seniors, and working families; and jeopardized maternal, pediatric, and public health. I guess I really am exasperated that the majority is taking this subcommittee, the Congress, and the American people down this path once again.

Of course, last year’s bill met its fate before the full Appropriations Committee even got to weigh in on it. And to finish our work on fiscal year 2024, we passed a bipartisan bill that enhanced educational opportunity, supported families, and helped the middle class.

I had hoped that our bipartisan conclusion to fiscal year 2024 – and our shared exhaustion from the needless chaos we were put through to get there – would have generated a different path for this year’s process.

But instead of picking up where we just left off, the majority has doubled down on their already tried, trodden, and failed strategy of writing blatantly partisan bills that will never become law.

This bill decimates support for K-12 education, and it abandons college students and lower-income workers trying to gain an education or advance their career for their chance at the American Dream.

This Republican majority’s bill harms women’s health, children’s health, and public health. The bill would surrender the safety and wellbeing of the American people to multiple ongoing health crises.

And the majority’s cuts to the Social Security Administration would mean closings and shorter operating hours at Social Security field offices, and longer processing and wait times for seniors and those with disabilities.

We know that this bill will never become law. But I thank the Republican majority for once again demonstrating beyond any doubt where they seek to take public education in this country.

I am delighted that you are letting American parents see what would become of their child’s classroom. American families deserve to know not only how the Republican majority’s bill decimates support for K-12 education—they deserve to know how it would abandon students, young adults, workers and seniors through all stages of their education and careers.

Just last week, the Republican nominee for President promised to, and I quote, “shut down the federal Department of Education.”

He said he plans to cut investments in our children’s education, again I quote, “in half, and get much better education in some of the states.” End quote. No word on the fate of the children and families in any of the other states.

Former Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos called for eliminating the Department of Education.

Former OMB Director Russ Vought has vowed to, quote, “thwart” a public education system he views as, again I quote, “an existential threat to the American Republic.”

As a Republican Presidential candidate, Vivek Ramaswamy said he would eliminate the Department of Education via executive action. Former Vice President Mike Pence, and Governors Doug Burgum and Ron DeSantis echoed him.

This is not a new idea. Republicans have been explicitly signaling their goal of eliminating the Department of Education for decades.

The Heritage Foundation’s public plans for a Republican White House broadcast the Republican Party’s intent to end the Department of Education.

Project 2025 spells out how Republicans would destroy public education – creating a country where education is not a public good for the benefit of all of society, but a wholly private enterprise. This is about making sure a quality education is no longer accessible to working families – but only a privilege for the descendants of the wealthy.

We saw where House Republicans wanted to go last year. We can see how they would move to end public education in this bill.

We saw 161 of their colleagues vote to eliminate all elementary and secondary education funding in the Massie Amendment to HR 5. Anyone who has paid attention to their explicit appeal to destroy public education should not be surprised by what the majority is proposing. But we should all be horrified.

The Republican majority cuts the Department of Education by $11 billion, including $5 billion cut from Title I which will take at least 72,000 teachers out of low-income classrooms, in the midst of a teacher shortage, no less. Those are teachers in classrooms in your districts.

Hard working families in your district pay their taxes and send their children to public schools, and this bill says we cannot afford to put a teacher in their classroom.

English language acquisition funding to help 5 million English learners nationwide is eliminated, disadvantaging and discriminating against students who primarily speak another language, restraining their future ability to compete and succeed in the American economy.

Supporting Effective Instruction State grants – which provide professional development opportunities for educators – are completely gone.

This bill does not just demolish public education. This bill eliminates opportunity for young Americans from Kindergarten to High School, and anyone who may aspire to go to college, learn a new skill, or begin a more fulfilling career.

Work-based financial aid from Federal Work Study for 315,000 students who need it to help finance their post-secondary education is cut in half – limiting their potential earnings and future success in the job market – as is need-based financial aid for more than 800,000 low-income students who use Supplemental Educational Opportunity Grants to finance their education.

Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act Youth Job Training grants are completely eliminated, destroying training and opportunity services for 135,000 youth.

And beyond education and training, this bill endangers the health of women, children, and families around the country. The bill eliminates funding for Title X Family Planning, which would be the end of support for preventive health care services, including contraception and cancer screenings, for 2.6 million low-income women and men.

It is outrageous that this bill launches a full-blown assault on HIV/AIDS programs, with total eliminations of funding for the Ending HIV Epidemic initiative and Minority AIDS prevention.

Also eliminated by the Republican majority: Gun Violence Prevention Research; Tobacco Prevention; Rape Prevention and Suicide Prevention;

SAMHSA’s mental health programs are cut by $150 million, and the funding for programs that were created following the tragedy at Sandy Hook elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut, is completely eliminated.

Who are you? Is this who you are? Please, we cannot do this.

Like every Appropriations bill, this bill is an expression of values. And I am appalled by the values the majority is expressing with this legislation.

And I also have my doubts about the majority’s short-sighted decision to overhaul the National Institutes of Health in a partisan appropriations bill.

The House needs to hold public hearings and engage in a thoughtful process to incorporate the best ideas to advance NIH as the crown jewel of biomedical research. Any discussion to reauthorize the NIH needs to be bipartisan and bicameral — unfortunately, the proposed reorganization in today’s partisan bill falls short.

In keeping with the majority’s other partisan bills, this bill is chock full of dozens of poison pill riders, including multiple provisions that attack women’s freedom and block abortion and reproductive health care services. Policy riders in the bill create an open season for discrimination against LGBTQ+ people, and they prohibit policies and programs intended to promote diversity in the federal government.

Like last year, we will defeat these policy riders – including any new attacks on a woman’s right to choose.

We know where we have to end up – this bill, like the 11 other Appropriations bills, needs support from Republicans and Democrats in the House and Senate in order to become law. That was how we ultimately and inevitably reached a conclusion in March.

The law provides for, and Democrats will accept nothing less than, a one percent increase for Labor-HHS-Education and each of the other bills – and dollar for dollar parity for any further increases on the defense side of the ledger.

Instead of writing the bill to what is, in my opinion, a stringent and limiting amount, which is set in law, the majority has cut the Labor-HHS-Education bill by eleven percent.

Because this bill abandons and endangers Americans from the classroom, to the examination room, to the workplace, I cannot support it and I urge my colleagues to vote no.

Democrats are at the table and ready to pass legislation that protects Americans’ education, health, and economic opportunity. Please, I implore the majority to join us. It is time to govern.

Thank you, and I yield back.

###