House GOP Presses for Deep Cuts to Education

The Senate Budget Committee's top Republican, Jeff Sessions of Alabama, right, and House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan, R-Wis., give the GOP response to President Obama's budget for fiscal year 2012.

—J. Scott Applewhite/AP

By Alyson Klein

Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives appear determined to make deep cuts to education and related programs in the temporary spending bill that would keep the federal government operating for the rest of the fiscal year, even as President Barack Obama seeks a modest funding boost next year.

That sets up a fiscal face-off in the Democratic-controlled Senate. And, should a bill with severe cuts make it through that chamber, the president has pledged to veto it. The current temporary measure expires March 4, and failure to reach agreement on a new one could mean the first federal government shutdown in more than a decade.

“We’re clearly headed to some kind of showdown,” said Joel Packer, a veteran education lobbyist who now works for the Washington-based Raben Group. He represents the Committee for Education Funding, a lobbying coalition. The Obama administration’s fiscal year 2012 spending plan seeks to raise funding for the U.S. Department of Education by more than 4...