Frank Riggs: “I have had several of my Republican colleagues ask me if this is legislation that I intend to support, and the answer to…”

“I have had several of my Republican colleagues ask me if this is legislation that I intend to support, and the answer to that is an emphatic yes. And if I can just back up for a moment and sort of walk my colleagues through the process, my colleagues will recall that the bipartisan agreement to balance the budget sets aside $260 million for a new Federal literacy initiative. I suspect that most people, obviously, in this Chamber supported that agreement, voted for it on an overwhelmingly bipartisan basis. We then set about crafting the details of that initiative fleshing it out, if my colleagues will, and had a spirited, bipartisan give and take as to the proper approach in spending that money. The President wanted his America Reads initiative, which would have led to a tremendous expansion of AmeriCorps, the National Service Corps Corp., and on our side of the aisle we insisted that a majority of the money be used for teacher training and to provide parents and guardians of children who have reading difficulties, who are consistently reading below grade level and behind their peers, with tutorial assistance grants.”