Date: July 21, 2004

Good afternoon everyone. To supplement the draft letter we sent to you last week supporting federal funding for the Perkins Loan program and opposing the $98.7 million cut proposed by the House Appropriations Committee, we have prepared a set of talking points as well as summarized the state by state breakdown of funding for the current year. Note that the State Totals document also has the web address for finding individual institutions' totals [both documents are in Microsoft Word format].

I have spoken to Senator Specter (R-PA), who chairs the Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services and Education, and communicated with the chief education staff person for senior subcommittee Democrat Tom Harkin (IA). Both Specter and Harkin support Perkins, but they have a tough job ahead to hold the funding. Your help is critical to back up our work in Washington, DC.

Please write your senators and representatives in support of funding for the federal capital contribution and the reimbursement for cancelled loans.

In addition, and this is very important, if you have others at your institution or company that work on federal or government relations, please get them involved and ask them to use these talking points and support the Perkins funding.

If you have any questions or comments, or receive any feedback, please let us know.

Harrison: hwadsworth@wpllc.net
Andrew: astringer@wpllc.net