Chris Van Hollen: “I rise to support the DeLauro amendment. Many decades ago, our country did a great and noble thing. We made a commitment…”

“I rise to support the DeLauro amendment. Many decades ago, our country did a great and noble thing. We made a commitment as American people that every child in this country, regardless of his or her disability, would get a good education. At that time, the Federal Government promised that it would pick up 40 percent of the costs of providing that education to youngsters with disabilities. But as we are gathered here today, the Federal Government is only paying 19 percent, and the result of that is not only that children with disabilities are not getting the Federal resources that are required for education, but also children without disabilities are suffering, as we are pitting one against the other. Now, we can talk about decades of who is to blame or who promised what, but let us just look at this year. This year we already have a story of sordid, broken promises. I serve on the Committee on Education and the Workforce. This year the chairman of the committee came forward with an authorization bill that would increase the authorization from last year's levels originally by $1.4 billion, to $10.3 billion. Then we in the Committee on Education and the Workforce had a discussion where we, Republicans and Democrats alike, agreed that in order to meet our commitment, we had to increase that authorization.”