John Kerry: “I say to my colleague--and he knows this full well--there are Members of the Senate who basically have been fighting for…”

“I say to my colleague--and he knows this full well--there are Members of the Senate who basically have been fighting for years to create sort of a full-fledged support system, through the Federal Government, for education and/or for schools outside the public school structure. That has been a great fight in the Senate. What I said is it is not the $7 that is critical here; it is the principle. If we adopt in the Senate a notion that we are going to now in the United States have a full-fledged support system for parochial schools and religious schools through the elementary and secondary level, that is new. Once we have made it $7, you are going to come back--or someone is--and say we haven't given them enough; we have to give them $500 because that is more meaningful. Of course, if we were willing to support either private or religious schools previously, what would stop us from giving them more money now? That is what this fight is about; it is not about the $7. Although, as a matter of choice, I don't see why it is we reward people who are already capable of sending their kids to these places and have made that choice versus the people who are having the hardest time making ends meet.”