Speaker Pelosi said that Trump doesn’t have the power to cut education funding and accused him of trying to unsafely open schools.
During an interview on MSNBC with Craig Melvin, Speaker Pelosi said:
We cannot say to kids, well, go to school, you might get sick and take it home. Because they’re the biggest risk, the biggest risk to the spread of the pandemic is opening up the schools in a way that is not safe. It’s not safe. So, if we’re going to defeat this pandemic, we shouldn’t be opening up to more arena to spread. We should use this as an opportunity for our children, put the resources in, we know what needs to be done, the resources are there to do it.
Again, it addresses many disparities in our education system. And when the administration talks about cutting all federal funds, which they really can’t do, the federal funds are mostly for children in economically disadvantaged areas, title 1. They’re for children with disabilities. They’re for homeless children. There are other things, teacher training and the rest. But they’re hitting right, again, at the disparity in education when they say that. You have to wonder if they really do believe in public education, which is the basis of a democracy.
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Video of Pelosi:
Speaker Pelosi calls out Trump's empty threat to cut education funding, which he can't do, and notes that when Trump talks about cutting education funds, he is talking about cutting funding to poor, disabled, and homeless students. pic.twitter.com/SboZybfmCk
— Sarah Reese Jones (@PoliticusSarah) July 13, 2020
No one should expect a functionally illiterate president who has gotten by for his entire life on his father’s money to understand or prioritize the value of education.
It feels like we have been over this roughly 3 billion times during the Trump administration. Congress controls the power of the purse. Trump can’t unilaterally cut funding or redirect appropriated funds for his own purposes. The federal government only contributes 8.3% of education funding, and as Pelosi noted most of that money goes to poor, disabled, and disadvantaged students.
Trump may think that he can cut education funding. He can’t, and Speaker Pelosi just called him out on it.
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Jason is the managing editor. He is also a White House Press Pool and a Congressional correspondent for PoliticusUSA. Jason has a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science. His graduate work focused on public policy, with a specialization in social reform movements.
Awards and Professional Memberships
Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association
