Tom Harkin: “We should not be taking it out of school construction and modernization--not at all. Our local school districts need…”

“We should not be taking it out of school construction and modernization--not at all. Our local school districts need this money. Go out and talk to your school districts. The people who are paying our property taxes are getting hit pretty darn hard. Ceilings are falling down. They are leaking. They need this help from the Federal Government. We have the wherewithal to do it. And that is what we ought to stick with. If the Senator wants to offer an amendment to fully fund IDEA, take it out of the $1.9 trillion budget surplus--``take it out of the budget surpluses,'' as my friend said, I am in lockstep with him because that is what we ought to be doing with that surplus. We ought to be meeting this basic goal of our Federal Government. Of course, while I believe some of the surplus should be invested in quality education, we don't need to touch the surplus to meet the goal of fully funding IDEA. There are many savings we could achieve that could more than pay for the investment. For example, look at Medicare fraud, waste and abuse. While we've cut it over the last few years, the HHS IG testified before our Subcommittee this March that last year Medicare made $13.5 billion in inappropriate payments. Eliminating that waste alone would more than pay for IDEA. Yet, the House passed Labor-HHS bill actually cuts funding for auditors and investigators. That means we would lose hundreds of millions more to fraud and abuse.”