Editorial

Over the coming weeks, students across the country will start preparing for the upcoming school year, looking forward to reuniting with friends, meeting their teachers and tackling new lessons. But for the nearly 6 million children in our country who have food allergies, school can be an unnecessarily frightening place. A tiny amount of an allergen or an innocently swapped snack at lunchtime could become life-threatening with the sudden onset of an anaphylactic reaction. School should be a place where children grow, learn and gain confidence in themselves not worry every day about a potentially deadly allergic reaction.

Last Tuesday, I had the opportunity to sit down with some of the hard-working civilian defense employees at Patuxent River Naval Air Station to hear firsthand how sequestration and furloughs are affecting them, their families, operations on base and the wider community.

With the start of the baseball season this month, many Americans are once again focusing on a cherished national tradition. But there is another great tradition that deserves renewed attention: our longstanding practice of supporting a strong and competitive manufacturing base right here in America. As our nation continues to face economic challenges, Congress needs to step up to the plate to make sure jobs remain at the forefront of its agenda by taking concrete steps to help our manufacturing sector expand and create opportunities for our middle class.

Over the past six years, Maryland has taken a balanced approach when it comes to fiscal policy making responsible cuts to spending while prioritizing investments in jobs, opportunity, and a stronger middle class. Because of this balanced approach, we're on the verge of eliminating Maryland's long-standing structural deficit, we have achieved the No. 1 public schools in the countryfor five years in a row, and since 2007, we've done more than any other state in the nation to hold down the cost of college tuition.

For more than 30 years, Ive been proud to represent my alma mater, the University of Maryland, College Park, and work to help further its mission by promoting quality, affordable education and this universitys world-class research programs. Thats why I was so disappointed that Congress failed to take meaningful action to prevent the arbitrary, and across-the-board spending cuts imposed by sequestration, which could significantly set back these efforts.

For more than 30 years, Ive been proud to represent my alma mater, the University of Maryland, College Park, and work to help further its mission by promoting quality, affordable education and this universitys world-class research programs.

The Congress is dysfunctional. As a result, in just a few days, should Congress fail to act, automatic spending cuts known as sequestration will take effect, with painful consequences in Marylands 5th District.

With all eyes on Washington over how to avert the looming fiscal cliff before the end of the year, critics of the public sector have been arguing that pay and benefits for federal employees ought to be among the first and deepest cuts