In an extremely close vote last Thursday, the House of Representatives passed a Republican-sponsored budget resolution to set broad spending targets for next year’s federal programs, including programs funded by the Education Department.
The Representatives agreed, 220 to 207, to a proposal, sponsored by Representative Delbert L. Latta of Ohio, that would fund federal education programs at approximately $14 billion in the fiscal year 1983. The House-passed budget resolution must be reconciled with a bill passed by the House last month that would fund education programs at approximately $14.3 billion.
The vote is considered a defeat for education lobbyists, who had been successful last month in their efforts to encourage House Democrats to include a larger education budget of approximately $16 billion in a Democratic-sponsored budget resolution. The Democratic budget was defeated last week by a vote of 225 to 202.
“I think the members of the House who voted for the Republican budget were just frustrated,” said David H. Florio, a lobbyist for the American Educational Research Association. “The messages we kept getting from Congressmen were that none of the budgets were what they liked, but they felt they should still vote for a budget.”
Reason for Passage
“The reason it passed is that members did not want to go back home and not have a budget,” he said.
The final version of the resolution will direct House and Senate committees to conform to the broad budget targets. Spending levels for individual programs will be determined later this summer by Congressional authorizing committees and specific appropriations for the individual programs will be set in the fall.
The department’s budget in the current fiscal year is approximately $13 billion.
