CHEERS AND JEERS

Cheers to:

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi for holding the hearing at which NEA member Megan Allen testified to the havoc across-the-board cuts would wreak on her students.

Representatives Rob Andrews (D-NJ), Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), Elijah Cummings (D-MD), and John Sarbanes (D-MD) for their support for stopping the looming cuts. Cummings said to Allen, “I went to a school like yours. If it were not for the support services and the people like you, I would not be here in Congress today. When you talk about that rock, I get it. Your kids … want to be somebody. They want to dream. That little boy Daniel with the rock, I want to see where he is in 10 years.” When Sarbanes observed that Congress ought not be cutting education programs while continuing tax subsidies for oil companies, Allen responded, “When I hear about the sequester, it sounds nonsensical. Why would we do this? Why would we take from 10-year-olds while letting large corporations get big tax breaks?”

Jeers to:

House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) for saying the looming across-the-board cuts don’t go far enough. In a Wall Street Journal op-ed published February 20, he said, “Most Americans are just hearing about this Washington creation for the first time: the sequester … There is nothing wrong with cutting spending that much — we should be cutting even more — but the sequester is an ugly and dangerous way to do it.”