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Cuts Weighed to Pay for Hurricane Relief

GOP plan would end 14 education programs, but savings would be small.

Congressional Republicans have proposed cutting some education programs to free up federal money for hurricane relief for schools. But Congress didn’t get any closer last week to approving a federal aid plan, so school districts continue to wait for such aid to flow to their schools.

Rep. John A. Boehner, R-Ohio, the chairman of the House Education and the Workforce Committee, this month proposed eliminating 14 Department of Education programs—not just declining to fund them, but repealing them outright. The $250 million in funding for the same programs was eliminated in the fiscal 2006 appropriations bill for the Education Department that the House passed in June. A press release from Republicans on the House education panel called the programs, which range from literacy instruction for prisoners to arts in education, inefficient and duplicative.

“We have a responsibility to help those in need in the aftermath of two devastating hurricanes, but we also have a responsibility to cut unnecessary federal spending elsewhere to pay for it,” Rep. Boehner said in a statement. Though Mr. Boehner’s cuts would be significant, they would barely make a dent in the billions of dollars being proposed...