As a member of the powerful Rules Committee, U.S. Representative Kathy Castor joined with Chair Louise Slaughter yesterday to quickly move the Continuing Resolution out of the committee and onto the House floor.

The continuing resolution will help improve health care and education opportunities by:

- Increasing the funding for veterans health care by $3.6 billion to provide health care for at least 325,000 more veterans.
- Helping more than 5.3 million students pay for rising college costs through an increase in the individual Pell Grant - by $260 to $4,310 per student.
- Providing increased funds for special education grants.
- Delivering new funding for 6,700 public schools, increasing funding for Head Start to ensure children. Since 2002, Head Start has been cut by 11 percent in real terms, which has forced centers across the country to cut hours, transportation, and educational instruction in order to sustain enrollments.
- Financing the construction of 300 new or expanded community health centers to serve 1.2 million new patients and help maintain critical health services.

“The U.S. House of Representatives is scheduled to consider the continuing resolution today to complete the unfinished appropriations bills left by the last Congress and avoid a government shutdown on February 15,” said Castor. “The last Congress left the worst budget mess since Newt Gingrich shut down the government in 1996. The new Democratic Congress will focus on priorities that are important to the hard-working families in the Tampa Bay area –aid to our students and health care for our neighbors in our communities. It will also put our fiscal house in order, and clean up the Republicans’ mess.”

After watching earmarks explode in the twelve years of Republican control, Democrats have eliminated all earmarks until the new reforms are fully in place.