Congressman Gregory W. Meeks Votes In Favor of the Education Jobs and Medicaid Assistance Act

(WASHINGTON, DC)– Congressman Gregory W. Meeks (NY-6), Senior Member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Financial Services Committee and Chairman of the Subcommittee on International Monetary Policy and Trade, voted today for H.R. 1586, the Education Jobs and Medicaid Assistance Act.

This bill provides a total of $26.1 billion in funding with $10 billion for an Education Jobs Fund and $16.1 billion in additional Medicaid assistance to states across this country. This will lead to almost 320,000 jobs being saving and created by preventing the layoffs of tens of thousands of teachers, police officers, firefighters, and nurses.

Specifically in New York City, $400 million in funding will be provided to help save jobs for nurses, firefighters, and police officers and $200 million will be allotted towards improving education throughout New York City. Additionally, the extension in funding will protect thousands of teachers’ jobs from termination in New York City.

“The passing of this legislation brings essential financial relief to the critical health care and educational services across the City and State of New York, and this country. New York is in the process of economic recovery and it is critical that we preserve as many jobs as possible and put those Americans who have lost their jobs back to work. This legislation will create and save much-needed jobs for nurses, firefighters, police officers and teachers while reducing the deficit by $1.4 billion over the next 10 years,” stated Congressman Meeks.

The Education Jobs and Medicaid Assistance Act contains $27.5 billion in offsets, including $9.8 billion from closing tax loopholes that encourage corporations from shipping jobs overseas, $11.9 billion from achieving savings in the Food Stamp program beginning on March 31, 2014, $2.8 billion from outlay savings through numerous rescissions, $2.0 billion from the addition of treatment of certain drugs for the computation of the Medicaid AMP, and $1.0 billion from eliminating the advanced EITC.

Now serving in his sixth full-term, Meeks was elected to the House on February 3, 1998. Representing New York's Sixth Congressional District in the United States House of Representatives, Meeks' district covers all towns of Southeast Queens, Far Rockaway and Howard Beach. He is a member of the House Committee on Financial Services and the Committee on Foreign Affairs. Congressman Meeks is the Chairman of the International Monetary Policy & Trade Subcommittee of the House Financial Services Committee. He is a Member of the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC), New Democrats Coalition and the Democratic Leadership Council (DLC). He serves as the Co-chair of the Malaysia Caucus, Services Caucus, Dialogue Caucus, OAS Caucus and the Middle East Economic Partnership Caucus.