|
|
Bob Corker on EducationRepublican challenger |
FORD: Sen. Al Gore Senior worked with Pres. Eisenhower to build the Interstate highway system, which was enormously important to commerce. We need a similar approach with education. For us to win the international educational competition, we've got to ensure that you have the best opportunities. My opponent's party has made Pell Grants more expensive. My opponent's party funded the No-Child-Left-Behind Act at half its promised level. We should not penalize any school until NCLB is fully funded.
CORKER: Education is the key to our future. As mayor, I worked with teachers to put in place some unusual policies that helped them flourish. Here in Chattanooga, we put in place incentives--bonuses for high-performing teachers who caused the things that ought to happen. What we saw was that those schools outperformed the other schools. I want to take those abilities at education achievement to Washington.
Proponents support voting YES because:
Rep. OBEY: This bill, more than any other, determines how willing we are to make the investment necessary to assure the future strength of this country and its working families. The President has chosen to cut the investments in this bill by more than $7.5 billion in real terms. This bill rejects most of those cuts.
Opponents recommend voting NO because:
Rep. LEWIS: This bill reflects a fundamental difference in opinion on the level of funding necessary to support the Federal Government's role in education, health and workforce programs. The bill is $10.2 billion over the President's budget request. While many of these programs are popular on both sides of the aisle, this bill contains what can rightly be considered lower priority and duplicative programs. For example, this legislation continues three different programs that deal with violence prevention. An omnibus bill is absolutely the wrong and fiscally reckless approach to completing this year's work. It would negate any semblance of fiscal discipline demonstrated by this body in recent years.
Veto message from President Bush:
This bill spends too much. It exceeds [by $10.2 billion] the reasonable and responsible levels for discretionary spending that I proposed to balance the budget by 2012. This bill continues to fund 56 programs that I proposed to terminate because they are duplicative, narrowly focused, or not producing results. This bill does not sufficiently fund programs that are delivering positive outcomes. This bill has too many earmarks--more than 2,200 earmarks totaling nearly $1 billion. I urge the Congress to send me a fiscally responsible bill that sets priorities.
