Republicans Are About To Put A Quarter Million Teachers Out Of Work

Republicans in the House have advanced a budget bill that calls for so many cuts that analysts have predicted it would put close a million teachers across the country out of work. This is a continuation of the right wing attack on education that has mostly been relegated to the states, but this is a massive shift with them trying to do it on the federal level. Ring of Fire's Farron Cousins explains what's happening.

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*This transcript was generated by a third-party transcription software company, so please excuse any typos.

This past Friday, Republicans in a subcommittee in the House of Representatives, advanced legislation that would slash education programs and budgets so badly from the federal government that the United States would lose roughly a quarter of a million teachers if this budget became a reality. Now, here is what this budget does. Uh, it would force a nationwide reduction of 220,000 teachers from classrooms serving low income students. Uh, legislation would also completely eliminate funding for a number of education department programs, including Federal Work study, federal supplemental Educational Opportunity Grants, promise Neighborhoods, and Childcare Access means Parents in school. So basically, we're not talking about just 220,000 teachers just randomly across the country. Oh, no, no. We're talking about a quarter of a million teachers who primarily serve low income students because this is a continuation of the GOP's attack on education, to dismantle it, to make it unable to function, so that they can then go to the public and say, look, it doesn't function, so let's privatize it.

Let's give all of this federal money to the private school system. Pay no attention to the fact that they're funding our campaigns. But, uh, I mean, as you can see, it's clearly broken as it is because we broke it intentionally. But that's the part they hope you don't notice. But that's what this budget is. We're gonna break the government and then whine about the government being broken. That has been the Republican strategy for decades. You know, underfund the fda, and then they can't do their job. And then you go out there and say, well, look, the FDA can't even do their job. Hmm. Do the same thing to the epa, crush them with their budget, crush them by firing everybody and say, well, look, they're not even doing their jobs.

And the public never pays attention to the fact that the reason these agencies aren't able to do their jobs, for the most part, is because Republicans made them unable to do their jobs just like the i r s. So that's what we're looking at here with Republicans. That's what they're doing to public education. But that's not all because this budget they've proposed does not just apply to the education department. Oh, no, no. We gotta, we gotta kill everything in the government. Uh, this from Common dreams. Additionally, the bill would inflict major cuts to labor, health and medical research programs and agencies slashing the occupational cell, uh, safety and Health Administration, osha by 95 million, slashing the Job Corps by 1.8 billion. The National Institutes of Health would be cut by 2.8 billion, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention would be cut by 1.6 billion because why not let the viruses just do what viruses want to do? Right? Let's make sure that corporations don't get in trouble when they break labor laws, and let's make sure that we fire 250,000 teachers who are serving low income students. That's what Republicans want, because they hate the government. They hate the institution for which they work. So they wanna break It So they can then go sell to their constituents that, Hey, everything's broken. May as well put it into the hands of private corporations.

Thanks for watching everyone, and well, here comes the awkward part at the end of the video where I ask you to like, comment, and share and subscribe for more content from Ring of Fire. Also, you should consider becoming a member for some exclusive content and perks, including early access videos and exclusive videos.