Douglas Alexander: “the question is funding for the title I program, Federal funding for our public schools across the country that helps…”

“the question is funding for the title I program, Federal funding for our public schools across the country that helps disadvantaged children. It is a very important program. I heard the Senator from West Virginia describe the importance of it. I agree with him about the importance of the program, but to try to put things into perspective, let me make a few points. First, the Senator from West Virginia, if I am not mistaken, is suggesting we spend $5 billion more, $2.5 billion a year on this important program. But he has not found some other place in the budget to reduce the spending. So this is $5 billion beyond the budget, and this comes at a time when all of the committees of the Senate have been working hard on deficit reduction. In the agriculture committee, in the education committee, in almost every committee, we are working at deficit reduction. Because we are at war, because we have had three terrible hurricanes, because we have new homeland security needs, and because entitlement spending--mandatory spending--is growing out of control, we are all trying to do a good job of living better within our means. So we are working to have a deficit reduction of $35 billion, and this would add another $5 billion in the opposite direction. The second point I would like to make to put this into perspective is that, as important as this program is, the Federal Government is not the principal source of funding for K-12 education. We only spend 7 or 8 percent.…”