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Here’s How Education Budget Plans From Trump and House Democrats Stack Up

By Andrew Ujifusa — May 01, 2019 1 min read
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We now have two pretty different visions for what federal education spending should look like.

In March, President Donald Trump released a fiscal 2020 budget request that would cut more than $7 billion from the U.S. Department of Education’s budget—it would eliminate 29 programs, and create $5 billion in annual tax credits for educational choice. (Those tax credits would be administered by the Treasury Department). As a counterpoint, House Democrats unveiled legislation at the end of April for Education Department funding that would increase agency’s budget by more than $4.4 billion and beef up several major programs.

Keep in mind that so far in the Trump era, Congress has decided to provide pretty small increases to the department over two fiscal years. But it’s still instructive to compare what the president wants for Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos’ department and what Democrats have in mind.

Check out our interactive chart below of how various programs would fare in the Trump budget request versus the House Democrats’ bill, as well as what current funding is in fiscal 2019.