Tammy Baldwin Confronts Linda McMahon With Her Own Past Words About Appropriated Funds

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At today's Senate Appropriations Committee hearing, Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-WI) questioned Education Secretary Linda McMahon about how allocated funds will, or won't, be spent.

Transcript

00:00Baldwin. Thank you, Madam Chair. Secretary McMahon, during your confirmation

00:05hearing, when asked about spending appropriated funding, you said, quote, if

00:12they have been appropriated by Congress, those funds should be disseminated,

00:18close quote. You also said that eliminating the department is not about

00:22cutting federal funding for schools. Now we have a budget request that is that

00:29significantly cuts funding for public schools, students, and educators. Now a

00:35few days ago, the OMB director said that impoundment is still on the table,

00:41threatening to take funding away this year. And we have your spending plan for

00:47this year that still leaves more than $8 billion, in your own words, unallocated.

00:54Not spending these funds is the administration making a decision not to

01:00invest in our children, and that decision has real consequences. What you consider

01:07unallocated for this year includes $1.3 billion for before and after school

01:15programs, which supports programs for thousands of students in Wisconsin in

01:19approximately 150 locations throughout the state, and over $2 billion to support

01:27effective teachers, of which an estimated $23 million would provide evidence-based

01:34professional learning for educators and help address gaps in access to effective

01:39teachers in Wisconsin. Are you going to allocate all of the funding Congress

01:46appropriated for students and schools in Wisconsin, and across the country, this

01:51year? Well, Senator Baldwin, thank you very much for that question, and I

01:56understand your concerns. What we have done in putting forward our operating plan, the

02:00first operating plan to show where where we were making allocations, and then

02:05followed up with the second operating plan. This isn't a nuanced question. Congress

02:11passed a law appropriating this funding. You said in your confirmation hearing that

02:17you would spend funding Congress appropriated. If the answer isn't simply

02:22yes, based on all of the evidence before us, that leads me to believe that you are

02:27planning to withhold funding and shortchange schools, students, and families

02:33across America. Well, we're going to continue to look at the allocations, and we'd like to

02:38work with you as we continue to evaluate those programs. We passed a continuing

02:43resolution that appropriated funding, and you said earlier that you were going to

02:47spend it as appropriated as is signed into law. So I'm going to move on. Secretary

02:54McMahon, when we met before your confirmation hearing, you told me that our

02:59students' mental health was a priority for you, yet you recently decided to

03:04discontinue mental health grants that Congress authorized and funded on a

03:08bipartisan basis because you determined, quote, they were not in the best interest

03:14of the federal government, close quote, which makes me wonder what changed since our

03:18conversation. Your operating plan for fiscal year 2025 describes this funding as

03:25unallocated this year. Your budget request for next year proposes eliminating this funding.

03:32Secretary McMahon, do you believe increasing access to mental health supports for students

03:37is not in the best interest of the federal government? We're not looking to eliminate

03:43this funding. We are simply continuing the funding, but we'll allow the states to re-bid on

03:49the competitive grant basis, and we're evaluating those programs across states. I think that a governor

03:55in the state or the local superintendent or the health care professionals that are working in that state

04:00state have the best opportunity in looking at what is happening in their areas to make those requests for those grants.

04:09And so that's what we're looking at. Secretary McMahon, the grant that you discontinued for the Wisconsin

04:14Department of Public Instruction was being used to expand access to mental health care for students.

04:20We're talking about more counselors and mental health professionals in schools.

04:25Why did you cut off funding for this grant and take away this help for Wisconsin students and schools?

04:32Well, because I think we have to look at it across the board, Senator, and the goal really is to make sure

04:38that the money is being spent in the best places for the best professionals.

04:42What about training new school psychologists, like what you chose to discontinue at Alverno College in Wisconsin?

04:48Do you think that's also not in the best interest of the federal government?

04:52I believe there are a lot of programs that are in the best interest of the government and, but the states

04:57and the local areas, I think, are the best place where we need to concentrate, you know, for these particular programs.

05:03Yeah. Thank you, Madam Chair.

05:06Thank you. Madam Secretary, I'm going to add my voice of concern with Senator Collins,

05:12and you and I have talked about this on the zeroing out, the elimination of the TRIO and GEAR UP.

05:17Right.

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