Jeff Miller: “the debate here is not who supports education more. Everybody supports education; the Democrats, Republicans. I have two…”

“the debate here is not who supports education more. Everybody supports education; the Democrats, Republicans. I have two children, one still in graduate school working on her master's in social work. We support education; that is not the debate. The debate is who is fiscally responsible in addressing the problem. Do we go back to the irresponsibility and use smoke and mirrors and just build up debt and put debt on our children? We are talking about the future of our kids, and the future of the kids is dependent upon the debt we are putting on them. We have a debt of over $19,000 to every man, woman, and child in this country today. If we just build that up and build that up and spend, spend, spend, that is nice for today, but what are we doing for our children and grandchildren? That is what this debate is about. We have to have fiscal responsibility. We have to have common sense when we get into spending, and we are talking about the future of our kids. That is what it is about. If we just throw more money, that does not necessarily solve the problem. We have increased spending for elementary and secondary education in this country from $4,000 per child in 1970 to $7,000 today. The District of Columbia spends over $9,000 per child. Now, there is sending, lots more money, and what do we have to show for it?”