Funding Head Start

Floor Speech

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Mr. COSTA. Mr. Speaker, for decades, Head Start and Early Head Start programs have provided comprehensive childhood development services to millions of children across America.

Research is showing that participation in Head Start can lead to positive outcomes for our children. By providing children with a strong foundation in their early years, Head Start helps level the playing field, especially for disadvantaged children, and gives them a better chance at academic success.

House Democrats have made it clear that investing in America's children will always be among our highest priorities. Thanks to investments we have fought for in the budget, we are working to ensure that Federal dollars reach every corner of the country.

In my district, I have secured $23 million for Fresno County and $22 million for Tulare County Head Start and Early Head Start programs. These funds will provide families with health and support services while growing the next generation of leaders in the San Joaquin Valley and in California.

Investing in education is investing in our children's future because when our children succeed, America succeeds. Honoring Yom HaShoah, Holocaust Remembrance Day

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Mr. COSTA. Mr. Speaker, I also rise today to recognize what has been taking place this week in this country and around the world, and that is commemorating Yom HaShoah ending in 1945, recognizing the 6 million Jewish victims who were killed in the Holocaust.

Sadly, on October 7 last year, 79 years after the Holocaust, we witnessed a terrorist organization, Hamas, rape, execute, and take hostages. Over 1,400 Israelis, Americans, and other nationalities were killed, which was the largest killing of Jews since the Holocaust.

There is clear evidence of the rising threat of hate and anti- Semitism being spread here at home and across the world.

I commend President Biden and Speaker Johnson yesterday for bringing together a bipartisan gathering to speak against anti-Semitism and the challenges here in America. In the United States, anti-Semitic incidents have soared over 140 percent in 2023, breaking all previous records.

In America, we support free speech and peaceful protests, but disrupting academic education and attacking Jewish students and faculty have no place on college campuses or universities in America. It must be stopped.

We must unmask groups like the National Students for Justice in Palestine for what they are. They celebrated on October 8 the actions of Hamas that took 1,400 Israeli lives.

This is an extension of terrorist groups like Hamas. Hamas' mission statement is to eliminate the State of Israel and to kill Jews, as referenced in their slogan: ``From the River to Sea.'' The river is the Jordan River, and the sea is the Mediterranean. Their purpose is to eliminate the State of Israel and kill Jewish people.

We must work together to break this cycle of hate that is plaguing our society and putting lives at risk around the world. In an era of rising anti-Semitism coupled with fading memory of the Holocaust, we must fight conspiracy theories and ensure the lessons of the past are never ever forgotten.

Last month, I was in Israel, and I went to the Nova concert site to witness the makeshift memorial where 364 concertgoers, innocent people, were killed on October 7.

Last week, I participated in a bipartisan visit of Members to the Holocaust Museum for an exhibit that clearly raises the issues of anti- Semitism in America in the 1920s and 1930s, which was led in part by prominent Americans like Henry Ford and Charles Lindbergh.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues and others coming to Washington to go to see this comparative analogy of anti-Semitism from the 1920s and 1930s to what we are dealing with here today. For it is real, and we must do everything together to combat this plague of anti-Semitism, the politics of hate, and the politics of fear. For as the famous historian George Santayana once said: ``Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.''

That is why it is important that we recognize this anniversary of the Holocaust and why we remember October 7 of last year. It is not a lingering, distant, fading memory. It is a reality that we have to deal with here today.

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