Tucson Standard

WASHINGTON, DC – On April 24, Representative Raúl M. Grijalva (AZ-07) blasted House Republicans on the recently proposed budget to cut fiscal year 2024 discretionary spending back to the fiscal year 2022 enacted level—resulting in a cut of at least 22 percent for essential programs – and the cuts it makes to critical education and child care programs.

“Republican’s proposed budget plan will make it harder for our kids to receive an education and working parents to get by,” said Rep. Grijalva. “Just as our economy is recovering from the pandemic, House Republicans want to stall our economic growth, undermine early education and parents’ ability to go to work, and gut our public education institutions of critical staffing and resources. House Democrat’s recognize that many families in Arizona and across the country are struggling to pay their bills which is why we’ll do everything we can to stop these heartless budget cuts and ensure working families can afford child care and college.”

These drastic Republican budget cuts would:

Fire teachers and slash public school funding.

• The Republicans proposed budget would remove more than 73,000 teachers and service providers from classrooms serving low-income children and reduce program funding to its lowest level in almost a decade impacting more than 25 million students.

Make college more expensive.

• The proposed draconian cuts would take away the opportunity for 80,000 people to attend college. It would also reduce the maximum award by nearly $1,000 for the remaining 6.6 million students who receive Pell Grants.
• It makes college more expensive for 275,700 Arizonans, including the elimination of Pell Grants altogether for 2,000 students in Arizona, and reduce the maximum award by nearly $1,000 for the remaining 273,700 students who receive Pell Grants—making it harder or impossible for them to attend and afford college.

Cut access to child care and preschool.

• As families struggle to find high quality, affordable child care, 200,000 children would lose access to Head Start slots and 100,000 children would lose access to child care.
• It eliminates 5,600 Preschool and Child Care Slots in Arizona and would mean 3,300 children in Arizona lose access to Head Start slots and 2,300 children lose access to child care—undermining our children’s education and making it more difficult for parents to join the workforce and contribute to our economy.

The Biden administration detailed in letters to the House Appropriations Committee the impact the Republican budget proposal and cuts would have on Americans. More information on impacts from the Department of Education are available here and the Department of Health and Human Services here.

Original source can be found here.