Sam Farr: “I want to go back to my statement that I made in the 1-minutes on the spirit I felt in this country when I remember…”

“I want to go back to my statement that I made in the 1-minutes on the spirit I felt in this country when I remember first getting involved and getting committed. Many of us are sitting here as parents. I think we have children growing up, and as a parent, we are more worried about the future of this country and this world for their livelihood. We all want to make the world better. I do not think that our Congress, with all the capability we have, a lot of very bright people elected on both sides of the aisle, are really focusing in on trying to bring out the best that is in America. I think that is where we are failing. We can get into the specifics of a program, and whether it is a mood to go to what I think is a fear of privatization, let us remove the safety nets, the gentleman is right. The last speaker talked about it. It is not who gets the credit. I believe that. We can accomplish a lot in life if we do not care who gets credit for it. But we have to accomplish it. What we are doing is not accomplishing it. One of the speakers earlier said we have too much Federal money in education. That is just factually wrong. That is wrong, wrong, wrong. Of all the money spent in education in America, the Federal contribution is 7 percent. Seven percent. That is not too much money. There is not anybody in America that will not tell us that if we have a top priority, it is educating our kids to prepare them for the 21st century.”