Barbara Boxer: “I am very grateful to Senators Harkin and Hagel for proposing this amendment. It is very important. It is a promise long…”

“I am very grateful to Senators Harkin and Hagel for proposing this amendment. It is very important. It is a promise long overdue. If we look at what has happened since we created this program, which essentially is a mandate to the schools to ensure that they take care of the disabled children in their school districts, we have fallen far short of our commitment to those children and to those schools. Every one of us knows this, regardless of whether we are from Illinois or California, east coast, west coast, North, South. The fact is, if you look at the chart behind me, what you see is that in 1996, for example, we voted $2.3 billion to help fund this program for our disabled children when in fact our commitment really was for $12.7 billion. It goes right through: In 2001, $6.3 billion. Remember, we added quite a lot, but it still is far short of the $17 billion we promised. This amendment is about fulfilling a commitment and a promise to our disabled children and also to the school districts all across this country that are doing so well at taking care of the children.”