Washington, DC -- The House of Representatives is on an unprecedented schedule to implement critical pieces of President Obama’s economic plan by passing all of our appropriations bills out of our chamber before the end of July.  These bills build on the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act to enact many of the major tenets of the long term economic plan that President Obama laid out and the Congress approved to provide short term help during this economic crisis to the hardest hit American families and long term solutions to grow our economy in the long term.

 

Congressman John B. Larson (CT-01), Chairman of the House Democratic Caucus, said, “The House will pass its bills on time and under budget – approximately $10 billion below the President’s request.  Our commitment to growing our economy and spurring job growth is evident in the appropriations bills we are working on now.  These bills are an important step in our economic recovery that, when complimented by our three other major priorities of clean energy jobs legislation, health care reform and financial regulatory reform, will put our economy on sound footing for the future. In these bills we invested in key priorities like innovation and education that will put our economy on sound footing well into the future and we boosted funding for safety net programs like food aid to help families that are struggling to make ends meet.  At the same time we are looking closely at every line of our budget to eliminate and cut programs that aren’t working in order to reduce the deficit and put us on a path to fiscal responsibility.”  

 

Below are a few of the steps the House has taken in our spending bills to enact the President’s long term economic plan:

 

 

·        We increase food aid for struggling families who rely on programs like WIC and SNAP (Food Stamps) to put nutritious food on the table, including expanding services to an additional 700,000 women and children.  

 

·        We provide $293 million to help local communities address economic challenges.

 

 

·        To support the President’s commitment to double funding in for the most promising scientific research and innovation in 10 years, we invest $6.9 billion in the National Science Foundation.

 

·        We renew our commitment to reducing global climate change with more than $2 billion funding for research and innovation that will spur job creation and economic growth.

 

·        We invest $1 billion to create the workforce of the future by improving Science, Technology, Engineering and Math education from Kindergarten through graduate school.