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• Estimated Impact on Iowa: 1,794 fewer kids in Iowa will have access to Head Start services.

Title I Grants:
The House plan cuts an additional $5 billion from the Department of Education, including slashing Title I education funding by nearly $700 million, meaning 2,400 schools serving 1 million disadvantaged students could lose funding, and approximately 10,000 teachers and aides could lose their jobs.

• Estimated Impact on Iowa: our state would see a cut of more than $4.5 million in grants to local educational agencies.

Special Education:
The House Republican proposal would cut almost $600 million in federal special education funding.   This reduction could lead to the loss of 7,000 education staff serving such students.

• Estimated Impact on Iowa: Lost jobs and potentially higher state and local taxes to make up for the loss of more than $5 million in federal funds to support special education.

Pell Grant program:
The House proposal cuts the maximum Pell Grant award by $845 per student from $5,550 to $4,705, a 15 percent cut.

• Estimated Impact on Iowa:

Under current funding levels:
Aid Available $809,200,000
Average Award: $3,937

Under the House Proposal:
Aid Available $675,700,000
Average Award: $3,290

For more information, please call Kate Cyrul or Bergen Kenny in Senator Harkin's press office at (202) 224-3254.

Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa made the following comment on the President's proposed budget for Fiscal Year 2012 released today.  Grassley is a senior member of the Budget Committee and the Finance Committee.  He is former chairman and ranking member of the Finance Committee, with jurisdiction over tax policy.

"The President said families have to live within their budgets, but his proposal makes a mockery of that statement.  Over 10 years, the debt balloons from $14 trillion today to more than $26 trillion. On any measure of debt, his budget makes things worse, not better.  Instead of tax reform, there are the same scattershot tax increases used to pay for new spending.  The President isn't using his bully pulpit to develop a national consensus on any issues that require leadership and the use of political capital.  President Bush stuck his neck out on entitlement reform, and it seems to me this President is avoiding a national debate on entitlement spending.  It's hard to reconcile the President's stated goal of getting the economy moving with his preference for tax increases.  Businesses have been crystal clear on tax increases and excessive regulations being the enemies of job creation.  You add all that up, and the President's budget is very disappointing."

Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa today made the following comment on a report released by the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration, "Reduction Targets and Strategies Have Not Been Established to Reduce the Billions of Dollars in Improper Earned Income Tax Credit Payments Each Year."  The report says the IRS continues to report that 23 percent to 28 percent of EITC payments are issued improperly each year. In Fiscal Year 2009, this equated to $11 billion to $13 billion in EITC improper payments.

"This is an outrageously high improper payment rate.  It's higher than Medicare's improper payment rate.  The taxpayers can't sustain a failure rate of one-fourth and on the way to one-third.  For more than eight years, the IRS hasn't made a dent in this problem.  It's more than enough time to figure out a way to fix it.  The report says the IRS doesn't have the resources to go after all of the improper payments in this program. This is a good indication of how the IRS is poorly equipped to handle the huge new responsibilities of health care reform. If the IRS can't handle its existing responsibilities, it won't be able to handle its new responsibilities under health care reform.  Maybe if the White House focused more on what's already owed, it wouldn't need to propose tax increases, such as the one on employers to pay for unemployment benefits just disclosed this week."